34th Congress, ) SENATE. ( Rep. Com. 

1st Session. \ I No. 34. 



IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES. 



March 12, 1856. — Submitted, and ordered to be printed, toj^ether with the views of the mi- 
nority of the committee upon the same subject. Motioa to print 6<>,')U0 additional copies 
referred to the Committee on Priatiag. 



Mr. Douglas made the following m 

R*PORT. 

The Committee on Territories, to loJiom teas referred so much of the an- 
nual message of the President of the United States as relates to terri- 
torial affairs, together ivith his special message of the 24ith day of 
January, 1856, in regard to Kansas Territory, and his message of 
the ISthof February, in compliance ivith the resolution of the Senate 
oftheith of February, 1856, requesting transcripts of certain papers 
relative to the affairs of the Territory of KoMsas, having given the 
same that serious and mature deliberation lohich the importance of 
the subject demands, beg leave to submit the folloiving report : 

Your committee deem this an appropriate occasion to state hriefly, 
but distinctly, the principles upon which new States may be admitted 
and Territories organized under the authority of the constitution of 
the United States. 

Tlie constitution (section 3, article 4) provides that "new States 
may be admitted by the Congress into this Union." 

Section 8, Article 1 : " Congress shall have power to make all 
laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution 
the foregoing powers, and all other powers vested by this constitution 
in the government of the United States, or in any department or 
office thereof." 

10th amendment : " The powers not delegated to the United States 
by the constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to 
the States respectively, or to the people." 

A State of the federal Union is a sovereign power, limited only by 
the constitution of the United States. 

The limitations which that instrument has imposed are few, specific, 
and uniform — applicable alike to all the States, old and new. There 
is no authority for putting a restriction ui)on the sovereignty of a 
new State, which the constitution has not placed on the original 
States. Indeed, if such a restriction could be imposed on any State, 
it would iniytcintly CL'Uje to be a Si ate witliiri tiie mea:i';ji^ o!" tlic 






2 AFFAIRS OF KANSAS. 

federal constitntion, and, in consequence of the inequality, would 
assimilate to the condition of a province or dependency. Hence, 
equality among all the States of the Union is a fundamental principle 
in our federative system — a principle embodied in the constitution, as 
the basis upon whicli the American Union rests. 

African slavery existed in all the colonies, under the sanction of 
the British goA^ernment, prior to the Declaration of Independence. 
When the constitution of the United States was adopted, it became 
the supreme law and bond of union between twelve slave-holding 
States and one non-slave-holding State. Each State reserved the right 
to decide the question of slavery for itself — to continue it as a domestic 
institution so long as it pleased, and to abolish it when it chose. 

In pursuance of this reserved right, six of the original slave-holding 
States have since abolished and })rohibited slavery within their limits 
respectiveh^, without consulting Congress or their sister States, while 
%he other six have retained and sustained it as a domestic institution, 
which, in their opinion, had bccom^^o firmly engrafted on their 
social systems, that the relation bet^Wn the master and slave could 
not be dissolved with safety to either. In the meantime, eighteen 
new States have been admitted into the Union, in obedience to the 
federal constitution, on an equal footing with the original States, in- 
cluding, of course, the right of each to decide the question of slavery 
for itself In deciding this question, it has so happened that nine of 
these new States have abolished and prohibited slavery, while the other 
nine have retained and regulated it. That these new States had at the 
time of their admission, and still retain, an equal right, under the 
federal constitution, with the original States, to decide all questions 
of domestic policy for themselves, including that of African slavery, 
ought not to be seriously questioned, and certainly cannot be success- 
fully controverted. 

They are all subject to the same supreme law, which, by the con- 
sent of each, constitutes the only limitation upon their sovereign au- 
thority. 

Since we find the right to admit new States enumerated among the 
powers expressly delegated in the constitution, the question arises, 
whence does Congress derive authority to organize temporary govern- 
ments for the Territories preparatory to their admission into the 
Union on an equal footing with the original States ? Your committee 
are not prepared to adopt the reasoning which deduces the power 
from that other clause of the constitution, which says : 

" Congress shall have power to dispose of and make all needful 
rules and regulations respecting the territory or other proj^erty be- 
longing to the United States." 

The language of this chause is much more appropriate when applied 
to property than to persons. It would seem to have been employed 
for the purpose of conferring upon Congress the power of disposing of 
the public lands and other property belonging to the United States, and 
to make all needful rules and regulations for that ])urpose, rather 
than to govern the people who might purchase those lands from the 
United States and become residents thereon. The word " territory" 
was an appropriate expression to designate that large area of public 



AFFAIRS OF KANSAS. 3 

lauds of wliicli tlie United States had become the owner by virtue of 
the revolution and the cession by the several States. The additional 
words •' or other i)roperty belonging to the United States" clearly 
show that the term "territory" was used in its ordinary geographi- 
cal sense to designate the public domain, and not as descriptive of the 
whole body of the people, constituting a distinct political community, 
who have no representation in Congress, and consequently no voice 
in making the laws upon which all their rights and liberties would 
depend, if it were conceded that Congress had the general and un- 
limited power to make all " needful rules and regulations concerning" 
their internal affairs and domestic concerns. It is under this clause 
of the constitution, and from this alone, that Congress derives au- 
thority to provide for the surveys of the public lands, for securing 
pre-emption rights to actual settlers, for the establishment of land 
offices in the several States and 'Territories, for exposing the lands 
to private and public sale, for issuing patents and confirming titles, 
and, in short, for making all needful rules and regulations for pro- 
tecting and disposing of the public domain and other property be- 
longing to the United States. 

These needful rules and regulations may be embraced, and usually 
are found, in general laws applicable alike to States and Territories, 
wherever the United States may be the owner of the laiids or other 
property to be regulated or disposed of. It can make no difterence, 
under this clause of the constitution, whether the "territory, or other 
property belonging to the United States," shall be situated in Ohio 
or Kansas, in Alabama or Minnesota, in California or Oregon. The 
power of Congress to make needful rules and regulations is the same 
in the States and Territories, to the extent that the title is vested in 
the United States. Inasmuch as the right of legislation in such cases 
rests exclusively upon the fact of ownership, it is obvious it can ex- 
tend only to the tracts of land to which the United States possess 
the title, and must cease in respect to each tract the instant it be- 
comes private property by purchase from the United States. It will 
scarcely be contended that Congress possesses the power to legislate 
for the people of those States in which public lands may be located, in 
respect to their internal affairs and domestic concerns, merely because 
the United States may be so fortunate as to own a portion of the ter- 
ritory and other property within the limits of those States. Yet it. 
should be borne in mind that this clause of the constitution confers 
upon Congress the same power to make needful rules and regulations 
in the States as it does in the Territories, concerning the territory or 
other property belonging to the United States. 

In view of these considerations, your committee are not prepared to 
affirm that Congress derives authority to institute governments for the 
people of the Territories, from that clause of the constitution which 
confers the right to make needful rules and regulations concerning the 
territory or other property belonging to the United States ; much 
less can we deduce the })0wer from any supposeil necessity, arising, out- 
side of the constitution, and not provided for in that instrument. The 
tederal government is one of delegated and limited powers, clothed 
with no rightful authority which does not result directly and necessa- 



4 AFFAIRS OF KANSAS. 

rily from the constitution. Necessity, when experience shall have 
clearly demonstrated its existence, may furnish satisfactory reasons 
for enlarging the authority of the federal government, by amend- 
ments to the constitution, in the mode prescribed in the instrument ; 
but cannot afford the slightest excuse for the assumption of powers 
not delegated, and whicli, by the tenth amendment, are expressly 
^' reserved to the States respectively, or to the people." Hence, before 
the power can be safely exercised, the right of Congress to organize 
Territories, by instituting temporary governments, must be traced di- 
rectly to someprovision of the constitution conferring the authority in ex- 
press terms, or as a means necessary and proper to carry into effect some 
one or more of the powers which are specifically delegated. Is not the 
organization of aTerritory eminently necessary and proper as ameansof 
enabling the people thereof to form and mould their local and domestic 
institutions, and establish a State government under the authority of 
the constitution, preparatory to its admission into the Union? If so, 
the right of Congress to pass the organic act for the temporary govern- 
ment Ls clearly included in the provision which authorizes the admis- 
sion of new States. This power, however, being an incident to an 
express grant, and resulting from it by necessary implication, as an 
appropriate means for carrying it into effect, must be exercised in 
harmony with the nature and objects of the grant from which it is de- 
duced. The organic act of the Territory, deriving its validity from 
the power of Congress to admit new States, must contain no provision 
or restriction which would destroy or impair the equality of the pro- 
posed State with the original States, or impose any limitation upon its 
sovereignty which the constitution has not placed on all the States. 
So far as the organization of a Territory may be necessary and proper 
as a means of carrying into effect the provision of the constitution for 
the admission of new States, and when exercised with reference only 
to that end, the power of Congress is clear and explicit ;' but beyond that 
point the authority cannot extend, for the reason that all "powers 
not delegated to the United States by the constitution, nor prohibited 
by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the 
people." In other words, the organic act of the Territory, conform- 
ing to the spirit of the grant from which it receives its validity, must 
leave the people entirely free to form and regulate their domestic in- 
stitutions and internal concerns in their own way, subject only to the 
constitution of the United States, to the end that when they attain the 
requisite.' population, and establish a State government in conformity 
to the federal constitution, tliey may be admitted into the Union on 
an e(|nal footing with the original States in all respects whatsoever. 
The act of Congress for the organization of the Territories of Kan- 
sas and Nebraska, was designed to cooform to the spirit and letter of 
the federal constitution, by preserving and maintaining the funda- 
mental princijjle of equality among all the States of the Union, not- 
withstanding the restriction contained in the 8th section of the act of 
March 6, 1820, (preparatory to the admission of Missouri into the 
Union,) which assumed to deny to the people forever the right to settle 
the question of slavery for themselves, provided they should make 
their homes and organize States north of thii-ty six degrees and thirty 



AFFAIRS OF KANSAS. O 

minutes north latitude. Conforming to the cardinal principles of 
State equality and self-government, in obedience to the constitution, 
the Kansas-Nebraska act declared, in the precise langua>2;e of the 
compromise measures of 1850, that, "when admitted as a State, the 
said Territory, or any portion of the same, shall be received into the 
Union, with or without slavery, as their constitutions may prescribe 
at the time of their admission." Again, after declaring the said 8th 
section of the Missouri act (sometimes called the Missouri compro- 
mise, or Missouri restriction) inoperative and void as being repugnant 
to these principles, the purpose of Congress, in passing the act, is de- 
clared in these words: " It being the true intent and meaning of this 
act not to legislate slavery into any State or Territory, nor to exclude 
it therefrom, but to leave the people thereof perfectly free to form 
and regulate their domestic institutions in their own way, subject 
only to the constitution of the United States." 

The passage of the Kansas-i^ebraska act was strenuously resisted 
by all persons who thought it a less evil to deprive the peo})le of new 
States and Territories of the right of State equality and self-govern- 
ment under the constitution, than to allow them to decide the slavery 
question for themselves, as every State of the Union had done, and 
must retain the undeniable right to do, so long as the constitution of 
the United States shall be maintained as the supreme law of tlie land. 
Finding opposition to the principles of the act unavailing in tlie halls 
of Congress and under the forms of the constitution, combinations 
were immediately entered into in some portions of the Union to con- 
trol the political destinies, and form and regulate the domestic insti- 
tutions, of those Territories and future States, through the machinery 
of emigrant aid societies. In order to give consistency and effi- 
ciency to the movement, and surround it with the color of legal author- 
ity, an act of incorporation was procured from the legislature of the 
State of Massachusetts, in which it was provided, in the first section, 
that twenty persons therein named, and their "associates, success- 
ors, and assigns, are hereby made a corporation, by the name of the 
Massachusetts Emigrant Aid Company, for the purpose of assisting 
emigrants to settle in the West; and for this purpose they shall have 
all the powers and privileges, and be subject to all the duties, restric- 
tions, and liabilities set forth in the 38th and 44th chapters of the 
revised statutes" of Massachusetts. 

The second -section limited the capital stock of the company to five 
millions of dollars, and authorized the whole to be invested in real 
and ]»crs()nal estate, with the proviso that " the said corporation shall 
not hold real estate in this commonwealth (Massachusetts) to an 
amount exceeding twenty thousand dollars." 

The third section provided for dividing the capital stock of the cor- 
poration into shares of one hundred dollars each, and prescribed the 
mode, time, and amounts in which assessments might be made on 
each share. 

The fourth and last section was in these words: 

"At all meetings of the stockholders, eacli stockholder shall be en- 
titled to cast one vote for each share held by him ; provided, that no 



AFFAIRS OF KANSAS, 

stockholder shall be entitled to cast more than fifty votes on shares 
held by himself, nor more than fifty votes by proxy.'"' 

Although the act of incorporation does not distinctly declare that 
the company was iormed for the purpose of controlling the domestic 
institutions of the Territory of Kansas, and forcing it into the Union 
with a prohibition of slavery in her constitution, regardless of the 
rights and wishes of the people as guarantied by the constitution of 
the United States, and secured by their organic law, yet the whole 
history of the movement, the circumstances in which it had its origin,, 
and the ])rofessions and avowals of all engaged in it, render it certain 
and undeniable that such was its object. 

To remove all doubt upon this point, your committee will here pre- 
sent a few extracts from a pamphlet published by the company soon 
after its organization, under the following caption: 

"Organization, objects, and plan of operations of the Emigrant 
Aid Company ; also, a description of Kansas, for the information of 
emigrants. 

^'■Trustees — Amos A. Lawrence, Boston; J. M. S. WilliamSj Cam- 
bridge; Ely Thayer, Worcester. 

" Treasurer. Amos A. Lawrence. 

" Secretary, Thomas H. Webb, Boston. 

"For the purpose of answering numerous communications concern- 
ing the plan of oiierations of the Emigrant Aid Company, and the 
resources of Kansas Territory, which it is proposed now to settle, the 
secretary of the company has deemed it expedient to publish the fol- 
lowing definite information in regard to this particular : * * 

"For these purposes it is recommended, 1st. That the trustees 
contract immediately with some one of the competing lines of travel 
for the conveyance of 20,000 persons from Massachusetts to that place 
in the West which the trustees shall select for their first settlement." 

" It is recommended that the comjiany's agents locate and take up 
for the company's benefit, the sections of land in which the boarding- 
houses and mills are located, and no others. And further, whenever 
the Territory shall be organized as a free State, the trustees shall dis- 
pose of all its interests there, replace by the sales the money laid out, 
declare a dividend to the stockholders, and that they then select a 
new field, and make similar arrangements for the settlement and or- 
ganization of another free State of this Union." * * * * 

" With the advantages attained by such a system of efi'ort, the 
territory selected as the scene of operations would, it is believed, be 
filled up with free inhabitants. ***** 

" There is reason to suppose several thousand men of New England 
origin propose to emigrate under the aus^iices of some such arrange- 
ment, this very summer. Of the whole emigration from Europe, 
amounting to some 400,000 persons, there can be no difiiculty in in- 
ducing some thirty or forty thousand to take the same direction." * * 

' ' Especially will it prove an advantage to Massachusetts, if she 
create the new State by her foresight, supply the necessities to its in- 



AFFAIRS OF KANSAS. 7 

haTiitants, and open in the outset communications between their homes 
and her ports and factories." ***** 

" It determines in the right way the institutions of tlie unsettled 
Territories, in less time than the discussion of them has required in 
Congress." 

Having thus secured from the State of Massachusetts the color of 
legal authority to sanction their proceedings, in perversion of the plain 
provisions of an act of Congress passed in pursuance of the constitu- 
tion, the company commenced its operations Ly receiving subscriptions 
to its capital stock, and exerting its whole power to harmonize, com- 
bine, and direct, in the channel it should mark out, all the elements 
of opposition to the principles of the Kansas and Nebraska act. The 
iplan adopted was to make it the interest of a large body of men, who 
sympathised with them in the objects of the corporation, to receive 
their aid and protection, and, under the auspices of the company, to 
proceed to Kansas, and acquire whatever residence, and do whatever 
acts, might be found necessary to enable them to vote at the elections, 
and through the ballot-box, if possible, to gain control over the legis- 
lation of the Territory, This movement is justified by those who 
originated and control the plan, upon the ground that the persons 
whom they sent to Kansas were free men, who, under the constitution 
and laws, had a perfect right to emigrate to Kansas or any other 
Territory ; that the act of emigration was entirely voluntary on 
their part ; and when they arrived in the Territory as actual set- 
tlers, they had as good a right as any otlier citizens to vote at 
the elections, and participate in the control of the government 
of the Territory, This Avould imdoubtedly be true in a case of 
ordinary emigration, such as has filled up our new States and 
Territories, where each individual has gone, on his own account, 
to improve his condition and tliat of his family. But it is a very 
different thing where a State creates a vast moneyed corporation for 
the purpose of controlling the domestic institutions of a distinct po- 
litical community fifteen hundred miles distant, and sends out the 
emigrants only as a means of accomplishing its paramount political 
objects. When a powerful corporation, with a capital of five mil- 
lions of dollars invested in houses and lands, in merchandise and 
mills, in cannon and rifles, in powder and lead — in all the imple- 
ments of art, agriculture, and war, and employing a corresponding 
number of men, all under the management and control of non-resi- 
dent directors and stockholders, who are authorized by their charter 
to vote by proxy to the extent of fifty votes each, enters a distant and 
sparsely settled Territory with tlie fixed purpose of wielding all its 
power to control the domestic institutions and political destinies of the 
Territory, it becomes a question of fearful import how far the oi)era- 
tions of the company are compatible with the rights and liberties of 
the people. Whatever may be the extent or limit of congressional 
authority over the Territories, it is clear that no individual State has 
the right to pass any law or authorize any act concerning or affecting 
the Territories, which it might not enact in reference to any other 
State. 

If the people of any State should become so much enamored with 



8 AFFAIRS OF KANSAS. 

their own peculiar institutions as to conceive the philanthropic 
scheme of forcing so great a blessing on their unwilling neighbors, 
and with that view should create a mammoth moneyed corporation, 
for the avowed purpose of sending a sufficient number of their young 
men into the neighboring State, to remain long enough to acquire the 
right of voting, with the fixed and i)aramount object of reversing 
the settled policy and changing the domestic institutions of such 
State, would it not be deemed an act of aggression, as offensive and 
flagrant as if attempted by direct and open violence ? It is a well- 
settled principle of constitutional law, in this country, that while all 
the States of the Union are united in one for certain purposes, yet 
each rftate, in respect to everything whicli affects its domestic policy 
and internal concerns, stands in the relation of a foreign power to 
every other State. 

Hence, no State has a right to pass any law, or do or authorize any 
act, with the view to influence or change the domestic ])olicy of any 
other State or Territory of the Union, more than it would with refer- 
ence to France or England, or any other foreign State with which we 
are at peace. Indeed, every State of this Union is under higher obli- 
gations to observe a friendly forbearance and generous comity to- 
wards each other member of the confederacy than the laws of nations 
can impose on foreign States. Wliile foreign States are restrained 
from all acts of aggression and unkindness only by that spirit of 
comity which the laws of nations enjoin upon all friendly powers, 
we have assumed the additional obligation to obey the constitution, 
which secures to every State the right to control its own internal af- 
fairs. If repugnance to domestic slavery can justify Massachusetts 
in incorporating a mammoth company to influence and control that 
question in any State or Territory of this Union, the same principle of 
action would authorize France or England to use the same means to 
accomplisli the same end in Brazil or Cuba, or in fifteen States of this 
Union ; while it would license the United States to interfere with serf- 
dom in Kussia, or polygamy in Turkey, or any other obnoxious insti- 
tution in any part of the world. The same principle of action, when 
sanctioned by our example, would authorize all the kingdoms, and 
empires, and despotisms in the world to engage in a common crusade 
against republicanism in America, as an institution quite as obnox- 
ious to them, as domestic slavery is to any portion of the people of the 
United States. 

If our obligations arising under the laws of nations are so impera- 
tive as to make it our duty to enact neutrality laws, and to exert the 
whole power and authority of the executive branch of the govern- 
ment^ including the army and navy, to enforce them, in restraining 
our citizens from interl'ering with the internal concerns of foreign 
States, can the obligations of each State and Territory of this Union 
be less imperative, under the federal constitution, to observe entire 
neutrality in respect to the domestic institutions of the several States 
and Territories ? Non-interference with the internal concerns of 
other States, is recognised by all civilized countries as a fundamental 
principle of the laws of nations, for the reason that the peace of the 
iWorld could not be maintained for a single day without it. How, 



AFFAIRS OF KANSAS. 9 

then, can we hope to preserve peace and fraternal feelings among- the 
different portions of this republic, unless we yield implicit obedience 
to a principle which has all the sanction of patriotic duty as avcII as 
constitutional obligation ? 

When the emigrants sent out by the Massacbusetts Emigrant Aid 
Company, and their affiliated societies, passed through the State of 
Missouri in large numbers on their way to Kansas, the violence of 
their language, and the unmistakable indications of their determined 
hostility to the domestic institutions of that State, created ajiprehen- 
sions that the objevt of the company was to abolitionize Kansas as a 
means of prosecuting a relentless Avarfare upon the institutions of 
slavery within the limits of Missouri. These apprehensions increased 
and spread with the progress of events, until they became the settled 
convictions of the people of that portion of the State most exposed to 
the danger by their proximity to the Kansas border. The natural 
consequence was, that immediate steps were taken by the people of the 
western counties of Missouri to stimulate, organize, and carry into 
effect a system of emigration similar to that of the Massachusetts 
Emigrant Aid Company, for the avowed purpose of counteracting the 
effects, and protecting themselves and their domestic institutions 
from the consequences of that comj^any's operations. 

The material difference in the character of the two rival and con- 
flicting movements consists in the fact that the one had its origin in an 
aggressive, and the other in a defensive policy. The one was organized 
in pursuance of the provisions and claiming to act under tlie authority 
of a legislative enactment of a distant State, whose internal prosperity 
and domestic security did not depend upon the success of the move- 
ment ; while the other was the spontaneous action of the people living 
in the immediate vicinity of the theatre of operations, excited by a 
sense of common danger to the necessity of protecting their own fire- 
sides from the apprehended horrors of servile insurrection and intes- 
tine war. Both parties, conceiving it to be essential to the success of 
their respective plans that they should be upon the field of operations 
prior to the first election in the Territory, selected principally young 
men, persons unencumbered by families, and whose conditions in life 
enabled then: to leave at a moment's warning, and move with great ce- 
lerity, to go at once, and select and occupy the most eligible sites and 
favored locations in tlie Territory, to be held by themselves and their 
associates who should follow them. For the successful prosecution 
of such a scheme, the Missourians, who lived in the immediate vicinity, 
possessed peculiar advantages over their rivals from the more remote 
portions of the Union. Each family could send one of its members 
across the line to mark out his claim, erect a cabin, and put in a small 
crop, sufficient to give him as valid a right to be deemed an actual settler 
and qualified voter as those who were being imported by the emigrant 
aid societies. In an unoccupied territory, where the lands have not 
been surveyed, and where there were no marks or lines to indicate the 
boundaries of sections and quarter sections, and wlierc no legal title could 
be had until after the surveys sliould be made, dis})utes, quarrels, 
violence, and bloodslied might liave been expected as tlie natural and 
inevitable consequences of such extraordinary systems of emigration. 



10 AFFAIRS OF KANSAS. 

Avhieli divided and arrayed the settlers into two great hostile parties, 
each having an inducement to claim more than was his right, in order 
to hold it for some new comer of his own party, and at the same time 
prevent persons belonging to the op[)osite party from settling in the 
neighborhood. As a result of this state of things, the great mass of 
emigrants from the Northwest and from other States, who went there 
on their own account, with no other object and influence, by no other 
motives than to improve their condition and secure good homes for 
their families, were compelled to array themselves under the banner 
of one of these hostile parties, in order to insure protection to them- 
selves and their claims against the aggressions and violence of the 
other. 

At the first election held in the Territory, on the 29th day of No- 
vember^ 1854, for a delegate to Congress, J. W. Whitfield was chosen 
by an overwhelming majority, having received the votes of men of 
all parties who were in favor of the ])rinci})les of the Kansas-Nebraska 
act, and opposed to placing the political destinies of the Territory in 
the keeping of the Abolition party of the northern States, to be man- 
aged through the machinery of their emigrant aid companies. No 
sooner was the result of the election known, than the defeated party 
proclaimed, throughout the length and breadth of the republic, that 
it had been produced by the invasion of the Territory by a Missouri 
mob, Avhich had overawed and outnumbered and outvoted the hona- 
fide settlers of the Territory. By reference to the executive journal 
of the Territory, which will be found in the papers furnished by the 
President of the United States in response to a call of the Senate, it 
will be found that Governor Keeder, in obedience to what he consid- 
ered to be a duty enjoined on him by the act of Congress organizing 
the Territory, on the 10th day of November, 1854, issued a proclama- 
tion, prescribing the time, place, and mode of holding the election, 
and appointing by name three citizens of the Territory residing in 
each election district to conduct the election in such district, together 
with the following oath, which was taken by the judges before enter- 
ing on their duties, to wit : 

" We do severally swear that we will perform our duties as judges 

of the election, to be held this day in the • district of the Teri'itory 

of Kansas, to the best of our judgment and ability ; that we will keep 
a correct and faithful record or list of persons who shall vote at said 
election ; that we will poll no tickets from any person who is not an 
actual bona-fide resident and inhabitant of said Territory on the day 
of election, and whom we shall not honestly believe to be a qualified 
voter according to the act of Congress organizing said Territory ; that 
w^e will reject the votes of all and every non-resident whom we shall 
believe to have come into the Territory for the mere purpose of voting ; 
that in all cases where we are ignorant of the voter's right, we will 
require legal evidence thereof, by his own oath or otherwise ; that we 
will make a true and faithful return of the votes which shall be polled 
to the governor of the said Territory." 

The same proclamation pointed out in detail the mode in which the 
election should be conducted ; and, among other things, that the polls 
wall be opened'for reception of votes between eight and ten o'clock a. 



AFFAIRS OF KANSAS. 11 

m., and kept open continually nntil six o'clock p. m ; that the judges 
will keep two corresponding lists of persons who shall vote, number- 
ing each name; that when a dispute arises as to the qualifications of a 
voter, the judges shall examine the voter, or any other persons, under 
oath, upon the subject, and the decision of a majority of the ])oard will 
be conclusive ; that when the election shall close, the judges shall 
open and count the votes, and keep two corresponding tally-lists, and 
if the tall3Mists shall agree, the judges shall then public!}'- proclaim 
the result, and shall make up and sign duplicate certificates in the 
form prescribed ; and shall certify, under their oaths, that the certifi- 
cate is a true and correct return of the votes polled by lawful resident 
voters. 

The proclamation also provides that the tickets or votes polled shall, 
after being counted, be again deposited in the box, together with one 
copy of the oath, and one list of the voters, and one tally-list, and 
one certificate of return ; and that the judges shall seal them up in 
the box, and carefully preserve the same until called for by the gov- 
ernor of said Territory, in the event of its correctness being contested ; 
and that the remaining copy of the oath, list of voters, tally-list, and 
return, will be taken by one of the judges, who shall deliver the same 
in person to the governor. 

The proclamation also provides that "In case any person or per- 
sons shall dispute the fairness or correctness of the return of any elec- 
tion district, they shall make a written statement, directed to the 
governor, and setting forth the specific cause of complaint or errors 
in the conducting or returning of the election in said district, signed 
by not less than ten qualified voters of the Territory, and with an 
affidavit of one or more qualified voters to the truth of the fact therein 
stated ; and the said complaint and affidavit shall be presented to the 
governor on or before the fourth day of December next, when the 
proper proceedings will be taken to hear and decide such complaint." 

By reference to the executive journal of the Territory, we find the 
following entry : 

"December 4, 1854. — The judges of the several election districts 
made return of the votes polled at the election held on the 29th day 
of November last, for a delegate to the House of Representatives of the 
United States ; from which it appeared that the votes in the said sev- 
eral districts were as follows, to wit :" 

Here follows a list of the votes cast for each candidate in each of 
the seventeen districts of the Territory, showing that 

J. W. AVhitfield had received 2,258 votes. 

All other persons received 575 " 

And on the same page is the following entry : 

'^ December 5, 1854. — On examining and collating the returns, J. 
W. Whitfield is declared by the governor to be duly elected delegate 
to the House of Representatives of the United States, and the same 
day the certificate of the governor, under the seal of the Territory, 
issued to said J. W. Whitfield of his election." 

It nowhere appears that Gen. Whitfield's right to a seat by virtue 
of that election was ever contested. It does not apx^ear that "ten 



12 AFFAIRS OF KANSAS. 

qualified voters of the Territory" were ever found who were willing 
to make the '^written statement directed to the governor, with an 
affidavit" of one or more qualified voters to the " truth of the facts 
therein stated," to "dispute the fairness or correctness of the re- 
turns," or to "set forth specific canse of complaint or errors in the 
conducting or returning of the election," in anyone of the seventeen 
districts of the Territory, Certain it is, that there could not have 
been a system of fraud and violence such as has been charged by the 
'agents and supporters of the emigrant aid societies, unless the gov- 
ernor and judges of election were parties to it ; and your committee 
are not prepared to assume a fact so disreputable to them, and so im- 
probable upon the state of facts presented, without specific charges 
and direct proof. In the absence of all proof and probable truth, the 
charge that the Missourians had invaded the Territory and controlled 
the congressional election by fraud and violence, was circulated 
throughout the free States, and made the basis of the most inflam- 
mator}^ appeals to all men opposed to the principles of the Kansas- 
Nebraska act to emigrate or send emigrants to Kansas, for the pur- 
pose of repelling the invaders, and assisting their friends who were 
then in the Territory in putting down the slave power, and prohibiting 
slavery in Kansas, with the view of making it a free State. Exag- 
gerated accounts of the large number of emigrants on their way un- 
der the auspices of the emigrant aid companies with the view of 
controlling the election for members of the Territorial legislature, 
which was to take place on the 30th of March, 1855, were published 
and circulated. These accounts being republished and believed in 
Missouri, where the excitement had already been inflamed to a fear- 
ful intensity, induced a corresponding efi'ort to send at least an equal 
number, to counteract the apprehended result of this new importa- 
tion. Your committee have not been able to obtain definite and sat- 
isfactory information in regard to the alleged irregularities in con- 
ducting the election, and the number of illegal votes on the 30th of 
March ; but, from the most reliable sources of information accessible 
to your committee, including various papers, documents, and state- 
ments, kindly furnished by Messrs. Whitfield and Reeder, rival 
claimants of the delegate's seat in Congress for Kansas Territory, it 
would seem that the facts are substantially as follows : 

The election was held in obedience to the proclamation of the gov- 
ernor of the Territory, which prescribed the mode of proceeding, the 
form of the oath and returns, the precautionary safeguards against ille- 
gal voting, and the mode of contesting the election, which were, in 
substance, the same as those already referred to in connexion with 
the congressional election. When the period arrived for the governor 
to canvass the returns, and issue certificates to the persons elected, it 
appeared that protests had been filed against the fairness of the pro- 
ceedings and the correctness of the returns, in seven out of the eigh- 
teen election districts into which the Territory had been divided 
for election purposes, alleging fraudulent and illegal voting by per- 
sons who were not actual settlers and qualified voters of the Territory. 
It also appears that in some of these contested cases the form of the 
oath administered to the judges, and of the returns made by them, 



AFFAIRS OF KANSAS. 13 

were not in conformity to the proclamation of the governor. After a 
careful investigation of the facts of each case, as presented by the re- 
turns of the judges, and the protests and allegations of all persons 
who disputed the fairness of the election and the correctness of the re- 
turns, the governor came to the conclusion that it was his duty to set 
aside the election in these seven disputed districts ; the effect of which 
was, to create two vacancies in tlie council, and nine in tlie house of 
representatives of the Territory, to he filled by a new election ; and 
to change the result so far as to cause the certificate for one council- 
man and one representative to issue to different persons than those 
returned as elected by the judges. Accordingly the governor issued 
his writs for special elections, to be held on the 24th of May, to 
fill those vacancies, and, at the same time, granted certificates of 
election to eleven councilmen and seventeen representatives, whose 
election had not been contested, and whom he adjudged to have 
been fairly elected. At the special election to fill these vacancies, 
three of the persons whose election on the 30th of March had been 
set aside for the reasons already stated, were re-elected, and in the 
other districts different persons were returned ; and the governor hav- 
ing adjudged them to have been duly elected, accordingly granted 
them certificates of election thus making the full complement of thir- 
teen councilmen and twenty-six representatives, of whom, by the 
organie- law of the Territory, the legislature was to be composed. On 
the 17th day of April the governor issued his proclamation, summon- 
ing these thirteen councilmen and twenty-six representatives, whom he 
had commissioned as having been fairly elected, to assemble at Pawnee 
City on the 2d day of July, and organize as the legislature of the Ter- 
ritory of Kansas. 

It appears from the journal that the two houses did assemble, in 
obedience to the governor's proclamation, at the time and place ap- 
pointed by him ; and, after the oath of office had been duly adminis- 
tered by one of the judges of the supreme court of the Territory to each 
of the members who held the governor's certificate, proceeded to 
organize their respective houses by the election of their officers ; and 
each notified the other, b}'' resolution, that they were thus duly organ- 
ized. Also, by joint resolution, appointed a committee who waited 
on the governor, and informed him that "■ the two houses of the 
Kansas legislature are organized, and are now ready to proceed to busi- 
ness, and to receive" such communication as he may deem necessary. 

In response to this joint resolution, " a message from the governor, 
by Mr, Higgins, his private secretary, transmitting his message, Avas 
received, and ordered to be read." 

The message commences thus : 

^' To the Honorable the Council and House of Representatives of the 

Territory of Kansas: 

" Having been duly notified that your respective bodies have organ- 
ized for the performance of your official functions, I herewith submit 
to you the usual executive communication relative to subjects of legis- 
lation, which universal and long-continued usage in analogous cases 
wouKl .SL'cm tu dcrnau."., ahh>.iig:i uv exprc-is re.iUMemfUt uf it is to be 



14 AFFAIRS OF KANSAS. 

found in the act of Congress which has hrought us into official exist- 
ence, and prescribed our official duties. 

" The position which we occupy, and the solemn trust which is con- 
fided to us for originating the laws and institutions, and moulding the 
destinies of a new republic in the very geographical centre of our vast 
and magnificent confederation, cannot but impress us with a deep and 
solemn sense of the heavy responsibility which we have assumed, and 
admonish us to lay aside all selfish and equivocal motives, to discard 
all unworthy ends, and, in the spirit of justice and charity to each 
other, with pure hearts, tempered feelings, and sober judgments, to 
address ourselves to our task, and so perform it in the fear and rever- 
ence of that God who oversees our work, that the star that we expect 
to add to the national banner shall be dimmed by no taint or tarnish 
of dishonor, and be subject to no reproach save that which springs 
from the inevitable fallibility of just and upright men." 

The governor, with the view to the "ascertainment of the exist- 
ing law'' in the Territory, proceeds to trace the history of all legisla- 
tion affecting it since the country was acquired from France, and 
advises the legislature to pass such laws as the public interest might 
require upon all appropriate subjects of legislation, and particularly 
the slavery question, the division of the Territory into counties, the 
organization of county courts, the election of judicial and ministerial 
officers, education, taxes, revenues, the location of the permanent seat 
of government, and the organization of the militia, as subjects worthy 
of their immediate attention. 

From this message, as well as from all the official acts of the governor 
preceding it, having reference to the election and return of the mem- 
bers and the convening of the two houses for legislative business, the 
conclusion is irresistible, that up to this period of time the governor 
had never conceived the idea — if, indeed, lie has since entertained it — 
that the two houses were spurious and fraudulent assemblies, having 
no rightful authority to pass laws which would be binding ujjon the 
people of Kansas. On the first day of the session, and immediately 
after the organization of the house was effected, the following resolu- 
tion was adopted : 

'' Resolved, That all persons who may desire to contest the seats of 
any persons now holding certificates of election as members of this 
house, may present their protests to the committee on credentials, 
and that notice thereof shall be given to the persons holding such 
certificates." 

On the 4th day of July, (being the third day of the session,) the 
majority of the committee, including four of the five members, re- 
j)orted that, " having heard and examined all the evidence touching 
THE matter of INQUIRY BEFORE THEM, and taking the organic law of 
Congress, passed on the 20th day of May, in the year 1854, organizing 
the Territories of Kansas and Nebraska," as their guiding-star, they 
have arrived at the conclusions which they proceed to elucidate and 
enforce in a lengthy report. From this report, it appears that fifteen 
out of twenty-two members present were permitted to retain their 
seats by unanimous consent, no one appearing to contest or dispute 
the fairness of the election, or regularity or truthfulness of the return, 



AFFAIRS OF KANSAS. 15 

in either of their cases. Hence the contest Avas reduced to the claims 
of one raemher who received the certificate under the general election 
of the 30th March, and the six members present who received certi- 
ficates under the special election of the 24th of May. In the first 
case tlie decision of the governor was reversed, and the seat awarded 
to the candidate who received the higliest number of votes at the 
election on the 30th of March, and from whom the certificate had 
been withheld by the governor, upon the ground of irregularity in the 
election and returns from one precinct, the exclusion of which poll 
gave the majority to the opposing candidate. In the other six cases 
the sitting members were deprived of their seats ; and the candidates 
receiving the highest number of votes at the general election on the 
'30th of March were awarded their })laces, upon the ground that the 
sjjecial election on the 24th of May was illegal and void, the governor 
not being authorized, by the organic law of the Territory, to go be- 
hind the returns, and set aside the election held on the 30th of 
March. 

The minorit}' report dissents from the reasoning, and protests 
against the conclusions of the majority, and affirms the right of the 
sitting members to retain their seats, upon the ground that the gov- 
ernor's certificate was not merely ^5rma-/ac?*e evidence, but was con- 
clusive, in respect to the rights of all claimants and contestants; and 
hence the house could not go behind the certificates of election to 
inquire whether there had been a previous election in those districts 
on the 30th of March, and who had received the highest number of 
legal votes at that election. The proposition is thus stated in the 
minority report : " I cannot agree tliat this body has the right to 
go behind the decision of the governor, wlio^ by virtue of his office^ 
is the organizing federal arm of the general government, to evolve 
and manage a new government for this Territory, for the obvious rea- 
son that Congress makes him the sole judge of the qualifications for 
membersliip." It is true, that the minority report alludes to " evi- 
dence before the committee of great deficiencies, not in the form of 
conducting the elections, but in the manner of holding them, both as to 
the qualifications of the judges who presided, and the returns made out 
by them," and says there is " no doubt that these illegal proceedings on 
the one hand induced the governor to withhold certificates from some 
who, from the number of votes returned in their fiivor, might 
at the same time appear to have been i)ro]ierly elected, and, on 
the other, to have been the ground on which he presented a cer- 
tificate in one instance, and in another ordered a new election in 
reference to other districts." But while the minoritj^ report afiirras 
the right of the governor to go beliind the returns and investigate ir- 
regularities and illegal voting at the election, as well as deficiencies 
in the forms of the returns, and asserts that he did exercise this right 
in each case in which he granted or withheld a certificate, it main- 
tains that the governor's decision, as evinced by his certificate, was 
final and conclusive, and could not be revived, much less reversed, by 
either branch of the Territorial legislatuie. >So tar as the question 
involves the legality of the Kansas legislature, ai d the validity of its 
actS; it is entirely immaterial whether we adopt t le reasoning and 



16 AFFAIRS OP KANSAS. 

conclusions of the minority or majority reports, for eacli proves tliat 
the legislature was legally and duly constituted. The minority re- 
port establishes the fact, by the position that the governor's certifi- 
cate was conclusive, and that he granted certificates to ten out of the 
thirteen councilmen, and to seventeen out of the twenty-six represent- 
atives who finally held their seats, which was largely more than a 
quorum of each branch of the legislature. The majority report es- 
tablishes the same fact, by the position that after going behind the 
governor's certificate, and carefully examining the facts, they confirmed 
these same ten councilmen and seventeen representatives in their seats, 
and then awarded the seats of the other three councilmen and nine 
representatives to the candidates whom they believed to have been 
legally elected at the general election on the 30th of March. 

The house, by eighteen votes in the affirmative to one vote in the 
negative, passed a resolution adopting the majority report, and de- 
claring that the contestants " having been duly elected on the 80th of 
March, 1855, are entitled to their seats as members of this house." 
Whereupon four of the sitting members, Avhose seats were vacated by 
the adoption of the majority report, signed a protest, and asked that 
it be si)read on the journal of the house, which was .accordingly done 
in the following words : 

^^ Protest. 

" We, the undersigned members of the house of representatives of 
Kansas Territory, believe the organic act organizing the said Ter- 
ritory gives this house no power to oust any member from this house 
who has received a certificate from the governor ; that this House 
cannot go behind an election called by the governor, and consider any 
claims based on a prior election. We would therefore protest against 
such a proceeding, and ask this protest to be spread upon the journal 
of this house. 

''JOHN HUTCHINSON, 
"WILLIAM JESSEE, 
''AUGUSTUS WATTLES, 
"E. D. LADD." 

Under date of July 6, the j> urnal contains a message from the 
governor to the "house of representatives of the Territory of Kan- 
sas/' returning "house bill entitled 'An act to remove the seat of 
government temporarily to the Shawnee Manual Labor School, in the 
Territory of Kansas,' together with his objections." While the gov- 
ernor, in assigning his reasons for returning the bill, labors to prove 
that the legislature had transcended its authority under the organic 
act, in adopting this particular measure, and argues against its ex- 
pediency on the score of the loss of time and money in removing to a 
different place during the session, he clearly and distinctly recog- 
nises the council and house of representatives as constituting the 
legislature of the Territory of Kansas, elected and organized in con- 
formity to the act of Congress creating the Territory. 

The reasons of the governor for returning the bill, were spread 
upon the j )unjcil, and, U2'0n rcccnsidciatioi:, it was jfasstd by a tv*o- 



AFFAIRS OF KANSAS. 17 

thirds vote in eacli branch of the legislature, and thus became the law 
of the land, " the objections of the governor to the contrary notwith- 
standing." 

On the same day the following resolution was adopted by both 
houses : 

^'Besolved by (he House of Representatives of the Territory of Kansas, 
{the Council concurring therein,) That the legislature of said Territory 
do adjourn on the 6th day of July, A. D. 1855, to meet again on 
Monday, the 16th day of July, 1855, at 2 o'clock p. m., at the 
Shawnee manual-labor school, in the said Territory." 

And on the same day the following resolution was also adopted by 
both houses : 

" Resolved, That a committee of three be appointed on the part of 
the council, to act in conjunction with a committee on the part of the 
house of representatives, to inform his excellency the governor that 
the legislative assembly will adjourn this afternoon, to meet on Mon- 
day, tlie 16th instant^ at the Shawnee manual-labor school, in the 
Territory of Kansas.'" 

On the 16th of July the two houses assembled, in pursuance of the 
adjournment, at the Shawnee manual-labor school, known as Shawnee 
Mission, and proceeded to the discharge of their legislative duties. 
In the meantime the governor had also repaired to Shawnee Mission, 
it being the place of his residence in the Territory, and the seat ot 
the executive offices as established and continued by himself during 
the whole period he exercised the executive functions. 

On the 21st of July a message was received from the governor, by 
his private secretary, Mr. Lowry, directed " To the House of Kepre- 
sentatives of the Territory of Kansas," in which he says: '■• I return 
to your House, in which they originated, the bill entitled 'An act to 
prevent the sale of intoxicating liquors and games of chance within 
one mile of the Sliawnee Manual Labor School in the Territory of 
Kansas,' and the bill entitled ' An act to establish a ferry at the town 
of Atchison, in Kansas Territory,' without my approval. 1 see 
nothing in the bills themselves to prevent my sanction of tlicm, and 
my reasons for disapproval have been doubtless anticipated by you, as 
necessarily resulting from the opinion expressed in my message of the 
6th instant." 

The governor then proceeds to argue the question at great length, 
whether the legislature is noiv in session at a place which can he recog- 
nised as a seat of government where the business of legislation can be 
legally or legitimaiely carried on. 

He does nor question the fairness and legality of the election of the 
members composing the legislature ; nor the regularity and validity 
of their organization ; nor their competency as a legislature to pass 
all laws whicli they may deem necessary and proper for the best inte- 
rests of the people of Kansas, pro ric/ccZ itshcdl he done at the right place. 
TTjion this point he says: 

" It seems to be plain that the legislature now in session, so far as 

the place is concerned, is in contravention of the act of Congress, and 

where they have no right to sit, and can make no valid legislation. 

Entertaining these views, I can give no sanction to any bill that may 

Eep. 34 2 



18 AFFAIRS OF KANSAS. 

be passed ; tand if my reasons are not satisfactory to tlie legislative 
assembly, it follows that we must act independently of each other." 

In conclusion the governor says : " If I am right in these opinions, 
and our Territory shall derive no fruits from the meeting of the 
present legislative assembly, I shall at least have the satisfaction of 
recollecting that I called the attention of the assembly to the point 
before they removed, and that the responsibility, therefore, rests not 
on the executive." 

The governor having thus suspended all official intercourse with 
the two branches of the legislature, refusing to examine their acts 
with a view of either approving or disapproving them, they appointed 
a joint committee of the two houses to draught a memorial to the Presi- 
dent of the United States, asking his removal from the office of gov- 
ernor; which memorial was signed by tlie presiding officers and mem- 
bers in joint session. The memorialists, after reviewing the causes 
which had led to such serious difficulties, and vindicating the right of 
the legislature, under the organic act, to remove the seat of govern- 
ment from Pawnee City to Shawnee Mission, concluded as follows: 

"In conclusion, we charge the governor, A. H. Keeder, with wilful 
neglect of the interests of the Territory ; with endeavoring by all 
means in his power to subvert the ends and objects intended to be 
accomplished by the ^Kansas and Nebraska bill,' by neglecting the 
public interests and making them subservient to juivate speculation ; 
by aiding and encouraging persons in factious and treasonable oppo- 
sition to the wishes of the majority of the citizens of the Territory, 
and the laws of the rjnited States in force in said Territory ; by en- 
couraging })ersons to violate the laws of the United States, and set at 
defiance the commands of the general government ; by inciting per- 
sons to resist the laws which may be passed by the present legislative 
assembly of this Territory. For these, and many other reasons, we 
respectfully pray your excellency to remove the said A. H. Reeder 
from the exercise of the functions now held by him in said Territory ; 
and represent that a continuance of the same will be prejudicial to 
the best interests of the said Territory. And, as in duty bound, we 
will ever pray," &c,, &c. 

[Signed by the officers and members of both houses.'\ 

On the 15th of August, Governor Reeder addressed a note to the 
Department of State, acknowledging the receipt of a communication 
from the acting Secretary, under date of the 28th July, in wliich he was 
notified that "in consequence of your [Grovernor Reeder's] purchase of 
Kansas half-breed lands," and "more especially the undertaking of 
sundry persons, yourself included, to lay out new cities on military or 
other reservations in the Territory of Kansas," and "more particu- 
larly, as you have summoned the legislative assembl}^ of the Territory 
to meet at one of the places referred to, denominated in your official 
proclamation ' Pawnee City,' I have, therefore^ by the direction of 
the President, to notify you that your functions and authority as 
governor of the Territory of Kansas are hereby terminated." 

On the 16th of August, the journal of the house of representatives 



AFFAIRS OF KANSAS. 19 

'' The following message was received from Governor A. H. Reeder, 
by Mr. Lowry, his private secretary : 

*' To the honorable the members of the Council and House of Representa- 
tives of the Territory of Kansas : 

" Gentlemen : Although, in my message to your bodies under date 
of the 21st instant, [ult.] I stated that I was unable to convince myself 
of the legality of your session at this place, for reasons then given ; and 
although that opinion still remains unchanged, yet, inasmuch as my 
reasons were not satisfactory to your body, and the bills passed by 
your houses have been up to this time sent to me for approval, it is 
proper that I should inform you that after your adjournment of yes- 
terday I received official notification that my functions as governor 
of the Territory of Kansas were terminated. No successor having 
arrived, Secretary Woodson will of course perform the duties of the 



office as acting governor. 



A. H. REEDER." 



Inasmuch as Governor Reeder dissolved his official relations with 
the legislature, and denied the validity of their acts, solely upon the 
ground that they were enacted in the ivrong place, it becomes material 
to inquire whether it was competent for them, under the organic act, 
to remove the seat of government temporarily from "Pawnee City" 
to the Shawnee Mission. The 24th section of the organic act pro- 
vides " that the legislative power of the Territory shall extend to all 
rightful subjects of legislation consistent with the constitution of the 
United States and the provisions of this act." 

That the location of the seat of government, and the changing of 
the same whenever the public interests and convenience may require 
it, is a "rightful subject of legislation," is too plain to admit of argu- 
ment ; hence the power is clearly included in this general grant, and 
maybe exercised at pleasure by the legislature, unless it shall be made 
to appear that Congress, by some other provision, has imposed re- 
strictions or conditions upon its exercise. 

The thirty-first section of the organic act provides "that the tem- 
porary seat of government of said Territory is hereby located at Fort 
Leavenworth ; and that such portions of the public buildings as may 
not be actually used and needed for military purposes may be occupied 
and used, under the direction of the governor and legislative assem- 
bly, for such public purposes as may be required under the provisions 
of this act;" and the twenty-second section of the same act pro- 
vides that " the persons thus elected to the legislative assembly shall 
meet at such i)lace and on such 'hiy as the governor shall appoint" 
for the first meeting. These two provisions, being parts of the same 
act, and having reference to the same subject-matter, must be taken 
together, and receive such a construction as will give full efl'ect to 
each, and not render either nugatory. While, therefore, the gov- 
ernor was authorized to convene the legislature, in the first instance, 
at such place as he should appoint, still he was required, by that pro- 
vision which made Fort Leavenworth the temporary seat of govern- 
ment, with the view of using some of the public buildings, to designate 



20 AFFAIRS OF KANSAS. 

as the place some one of tlie piiMic biiildinc^s within the military res- 
ervation of Fort Leavenworth. Had not Congress, in the meantime, 
interposed and changed the law, as here presented, the governor 
would not have been authorized to have convened the legislature at 
"Pawnee City," or at any other place in the Territory than some 
one of the public buildings at Fort Leavenworth, as provided in the 
organic act. 

In view of the fact that the Secretary of War had intimated an 
opinion that all of the public buildings at Fort Leavenworth were 
needed for military purposes, and that the location of the seat of gov- 
ernment, even temporarily, within the lines of a military reservation, 
where the military law must necessarily prevail, would be inconve- 
nient, if not injurious to the public service, the following provision 
was adopted in the appropriation bill of the oth of August, 1854, for 
the purpose of enabling the governor to erect buildings for the tem- 
porary seat of government at some more suitable and convenient point 
in the Territory : " That in the event that the Secretary of War shall 
deem it inconsistent w^ith the interest of the military service to furnish 
a sufficient portion of the military buildings at Fort Leavenworth for 
the use of the Territorial government of Kansas, the sum of twenty- 
five thousand dollars shall be, and in that contingency is hereby ap- 
propriated, for the erection of public buildings for the use of the legis- 
lature of the Territory of Kansas, to be expended under the direction 
of the governor of said Territory." 

Under this provision, taken in connexion with that clause of the 
organic act which authorized the governor to convene the legislature 
at such place as he should appoint, he would have had the right to 
establish the temporary seat of government and erect the public build- 
ings at Pawnee City, or any other place he might have selected in the 
Territory, instead of Fort Leavenworth, but for the fact that on the 
3d of March, 1853, and before any portion of the money had been 
expended, or even the site selected, Congress made a further appro- 
priation of twenty-five thousand dollars for public buildings, with 
the proviso ''that said money, or any jiart thereof, or any portion of 
the money heretofore appropriated for this purpose, shall not be ex- 
pended until the legislature of said Territory sliall liave fixed by law 
the permanent seat of government." This provision did not confer 
upon the legislature any power in respect to the location of the seat 
of government, either temporarily or permanently, which it did not 
previously possess ; for the general grant, extending to all " rightful 
subjects of legislation," necessarily included the right to determine 
the place of holding its sessions. The object, as well as legal effect 
of this provision, was to restrain the governor from expending the 
appropriation until the voice of the people of Kansas should be ex- 
pressed, through their legislature, in the selection of the place ; leav- 
ing the governor to perform liis whole duty under the 22d section of 
the organic act, by appointing the place and day of the first meeting 
of the legislature, and of expending the money appropriated by Con- 
gress for the erection of public buildings, at such i^lace as the legis- 
lature should designate for the permanent seat of government of the 
Territory. 



AFFAIRS OF KANSAS. 21 

Under this view of the suhject, it is evident that the legislature 
was clothed with legitimate authority to enact the law in obedience to 
which its session was adjourned from Pawnee City to Shawnee Mis- 
sion; and that its enactments, made at the latter place,, must have 
the same force and validity that they would have possessed had not 
the removal taken place. 

Those who seek to find some tenable ground upon wliich to destroy 
the validity of the legislative acts of Kansas, seeing that they cannot 
safely rely upon the alleged irregularity of the elections, nor upon the 
absence of legal authority in the legislature to remove the seat of gov- 
ernment, flatter themselves that they have recently discovered a new 
fact which will extricate them from their difficulty, and enable them 
to accomplish their purpose. It is, that by the treaties of November 
7, 1825, and of August 8, 1831, with the Shawnees of Missouri and 
Ohio, a large tract of land, including the Shawnee Mission, where 
the legislature held its session, and the governor established the ex- 
ecutive offices, was secured to those Indians, with the guaranty on 
the part of the United States " that said lands shall never be within 
the bounds of any State or Territory, nor subject to the laws thereof;" 
and that the 19th section of the Kansas- Nebraska act provides that 
" nothing in this act contained shall be construed to include any ter- 
ritory which, by treaty with any Indian tribe, is not, without the con- 
sent of said tribe, to be included within the territorial limits or juris- 
diction of any State or Territory ; but all such territory shall be ex- 
cepted out of the boundaries, and constitute no part of the Territory 
of Kansas." Upon the authority of these clauses of the treaties, and 
oftheactof Congress organizing the Territory, it is assumed that 
the Shawnee Mission, where the legislature enacted those laws, was 
not within the limits or jurisdiction of the Territory of Kansas, and 
hence they were null and void. Without admitting, even by impli- 
cation, that the place where the legislature should enact its laws 
would, to any extent, impair their validity, it is proper to call the at- 
tention of the Senate to the fact recorded on its journal, that, on the 
10th of May, 1854, (only a few days before the passage of the Kansas- 
Nebraska act,) a treaty was made with these same Indians, by the 
first article of which all the lands granted to them by the said treaties 
of 1825 and 1831, were ceded to the United States, and, being thus ex- 
empted from the operation of the guaranties in those treaties, were, 
by the terms of the organic act of Kansas, included within the limits, 
and rendered subject to the jurisdiction of said Territory. 

The second article granted the house in which the legislature 
afterwards held its sessions, and the land upon which the house 
stood, to the missionary society of the Methodist Episcopal Church 
South, in these words : "Of the lands lying east of the parallel line 
aforesaid, there shall first be set apart to the missionary society of 
the Methodist E})iscopal Church South, to include the improvements 
of the Indian manual-labor school, three sections of land ; to the 
Friends' Shawnee labor school, including the improvements there, 
three hundred and twenty acres of land ; and to the American Baptist 
Union, to include the improvements where the superintendent of the 
school now resides, one hundred and sixty acres of land ; and also 



22 AFFAIRS OF KANSAS. 

five acres of land to the Shawnee Methodist Church, including the 
meeting-house and grave-yard ; and two acres of land to the Shawnee 
Baptist Church, including the meeting-house and grave-j^ard." 

The other articles of the treaty provide for the survey of tliese 
lands, and for granting two hundred acres to each Shawnee Indian, 
to be held as private jiroperty, subject to such conditions as Congress 
should impose, and recognise the right of the legislature to lay ont 
roads and public highways across the Indian lands, on the same 
terms as the laAv provides for their location through the lands of 
citizens of the United States. The Rev. Thomas Johnson, who was 
president of the Kansas legislative council, and also agent of the 
missionary society of the Methodist Episcopal Church, to which the 
lands and improvements belonged, authorized the legislature to use 
and occupy such portions of the buildings of which he held the lawful 
possession, as they should find convenient in the exercise of their 
legislative functions. 

Upon a careful review and examination of all the facts^ laws, and 
treaties bearing upon the point, your committee are clearly of the 
opinion that the Shawnee manual-labor school was a place to which 
the legislature might lawfully adjourn and enact valid laws in pur- 
suance of the organic act of the Territory. 

We do not deem it necessary to inquire into the expediency of the 
removal of the seat of government, for the reason that it cannot 
affect the validity of the legislative proceedings. It is sufficient to 
state, that the reasons assigned by the governor against the ex- 
pediency of the measure, were: first, "the loss of time (more 
valuable because limited) which our organic law allots to the 
legislative session;" and secondly, "because it will involve a 
pecuniary loss, in view of the arrangements which have been made 
at this place for our accommodation." As an offset to the unfortu- 
nate circumstance that the people of Kansas would be deprived, for 
the period of ten days, of all the advantages and protection which 
were expected to result from the wholesome laws which the governor 
had recommended them to enact upon all rightful subjects of legisla- 
tion, and to the pecuniary loss which would be sustained in conse- 
quence of the removal from Pawnee City, the members of the legis- 
lature, in their memorial to the President of the United States, ask- 
ing him to remove the governor, state their reasons as follows, for the 
allegation that there was an unnecessary loss of three months' time 
after the election in convening the legislature, and that Pawnee was 
not a suitable place for them to meet : 

" After the contest was over, and the result known, he delayed the 
assembling of the body until the 2d day of July — more than three 
months afterwards — and that, too, when the whole Union was con- 
vulsed on account of alleged outrages in Kansas Territory, and yet 
no law for the punishment or prevention of them. "When at last 
they did meet, upon the call of the governor, at a point where they 
had previously, in an informal manner, protested against being call- 
ed, with an avowal of their intention to adjourn to the point at which 
they are now assembled, for the reasons that the requisite accommo- 
dations could not be had ; where there were no facilities for com- 
munication with their families or constituents ; where they could not 



AFFAIRS OF KANSAS. 23 

even find tlie commonest food to eat, unless at an enormous expense, 
tliere Leing no gardens yet made by the squatters ; where the house 
in which we were expected to assemble had no roof or flour on the 
Saturday preceding the Monday of our a sembling, and for the com- 
pletion of which the entire Sabbath day ai d night was desecrated by 
the continual labor of the mechanics ; wheu, at least, one half of the 
members, employees, and almost all others who had assembled there 
for business or otherwise, had to camp out in wagons and tents during 
a rainy, liot season, and where cholera broke out, as a consequence of 
the inadequate food and shelter ; and when, under all of these cir- 
cumstances of annoyance, they finally passed an act adjourning to 
this point, Shawnee manual-labor school, where ample accommodations 
are provided, and where the governor himself had previously made it 
the seat of government, they were met by his veto, which is here- 
with transmitted," 

Your committee have not considered it any part of their duty to 
examine and review each enactment and provision of the large vulume 
of laws adopted by the legislature of Kansas upon almost every right- 
ful subject of legislation, and affecting nearly every relation and in- 
terest in life, with a view either to their approval or disajjproval by 
Congress, for the reason that they are local laws, confined in their 
operation to the internal concerns of the Territory, the control and 
management of which, by the principles of the federal constitution, 
as well as by the very terms of the Kansas-Nebraska act, are confided 
to the people of the Territory, to be determined by themselves tbrough 
their representatives in their local legislature, and not by the Con- 
gress, in which they have no representatives to give or withhold their 
assent to the laws upon which their rights and liberties may all de- 
pend. Under these laws marriages have taken place, children have 
been born, deaths have occurred, estates have been distributed, con- 
tracts have been made, and rights have accrued which it is not competent 
for Congress to divest. If there can be a doubt in respect to the 
validity of these laws, growing out of the alleged irregularity of the 
election of the members of the legislature, or the lawfulness of the 
place where its sessions were held, which it is competent for any 
tribunal to inquire into with a view to its decision at this day, and 
after the series of events which have ensued, it must be a judicial 
question, over Avhich Congress can have no control, and which can be 
determined only by the courts of justice, under the protection and 
sanction of the constitution. 

When it was proposed in the last Congress to annul the acts of the 
legislative assembly of Minnesota, incorporating certain railroad com- 
panies, this committee reported against the proposition, and, instead 
of annulling the local legislation of the Territory, recommended the 
repeal of that clause of the organic act of Minnesota which reserves to 
Congress the right to disappruve its laws. That recommendation 
was based on tlie theory that the people of the Territory, being citi- 
zens of the United States, were entitled to the privilege of self-gov- 
ernment in obedience to the constitution ; and if, in the exercise of 
this right, they had made wise and just laws, they ought to be per- 
mitted to enjoy all the advantages resulting from them ; while, on the 



24 AFFAIRS OF KANSAS. 

contrary, if tliey had made unwise and iiujnst laws, they should abide 
the consequences of their own acts until they discovered, acknowledged, 
and corrected their errors. 

It has been alleged that gross misrepresentations have been made 
in respect to the character of the laws enacted by the legislature of 
Kansas, calculated, if not designed, to prejudice the public mind at a 
distance against those who enacted them, and to create the impression 
that it was the duty of Congress to interfere and annul them. In 
view of the violent and insurrectionary measures which were being 
taken to resist the laws of the Territory, a convention of delegates, 
representing almost every portion of the Territory of Kansas, was 
held at the city of Leavenworth on the 14th of November, 1855, at 
which men of all shades of political opinions, "Whigs, Democrats, 
Pro-slavery men, and Free-state men, all met and harmonized 
together, and forgot their former differences in the common danger 
that seemed to threaten the peace^ good order, and prosperity of this 
community." This convention was presided over by the governor of 
the Territory, assisted by a majority of the judges of the supreme 
court ; and the address to the citizens of the United States, among 
other distinguished names, bears the signatures of the United States 
district attorney and marshal for the Territory. 

It is but reasonable to assume that the interpretation which these 
functionaries have given to the acts of the Kansas legislature in this 
address will be observed in their official exposition and execution of 
the same. In reference to the wide-spread perversions and misrepre- 
sentations of those laws, this address says : 

"The laws passed by the legislature have been most grossly mis- 
represented, with the view of prejudicing the public against that 
body, and as an excuse for the revolutionary movements in this Ter- 
ritory. The limits of this address will not permit a correction of all 
these misrepresentations; but we will notice some of them, that have 
had the most wide-spread circulation. 

" It has been charged and widely circulated that the legislature, in 
order to perpetuate their rule, had passed a law prescribing the qual- 
ification of voters, by which it is declared ' that any one may vote 
who will swear allegiance to the fugitive slave law, the Kansas 
and Nebraska bill, and pay one dollar.' Such is declared to be the 
evidence of citizenship, such the qualification of voters. In reply to 
this, we say that no such law was ever passed by the legislature. 
The law prescribing the qualification of voters expressly provides 
that, to entitle a person to vote, lie must be twenty-one years of age, 
an actual inhabitant of this Territory, and of the county or district 
in which he offers to vote, and shall have paid a Territorial tax. 
There is no law requiring him to pay a dollar-tax as a qualification 
to vote. He must pay a tax, it is true, (and this is by no means an 
unusual requirement in the States ;) but whether this tax is levied on 
his personal or real property, his money at interest, or is a poll-tax, 
makes no difference ; the payment of any Territorial tax entitles the 
person to vote, j^rovided he has the other qualifications provided by 
law. The act seems to be carefully drawn, with the view of excluding 
all illegal and foreign votes. The voter must be an inhabitant of the 



AFFAIRS OF KANSAS. 25 

Territory, and of the county or district in which he offers to vote, 
and lie must have paid a Territorial tax. The judges and clerks are 
required to be sworn, and to keep duplicate pull-hoxes ; and ample 
provision is made for contesting elections, and purging the polls of 
all illegal votes. It is difficult to see how a more guarded hiw could 
be framed, for the purpose of protecting the purity of elections and 
the sanctity of the ballot-box. The law does not require the voter to 
swear to support the fugitive-slave law, or the Kansas and Nebraska 
bill, unless he is challenged ; in that case, he is required to take an 
oath to sui)port each of these laws. As to the dollar law, (so called,) 
it is merely a poll-tax, and has no more connexion with the right of 
suffrage than any other tax levied by the Territorial authority, and is 
to be paid whether the party votes or not. It is a mere temporary 
measure^ having no force beyond this year, and was resorted to as 
such to supply the Territorial treasury with the necessary means to 
carry on the government. 

" It has also been charged against the legislature that they elected 
all of the officers of the Territory for six years. This is without any 
foundation. They elected no officer for six years ; and the only civil 
officers they retain the election of, that occurs to us at present, are 
the auditor and treasurer of state, and the district attorneys, who hold 
their offices for four^ and not six years. By the organic act, the com- 
missions issued by the governor to the civil officers of the Territory 
all expired on the adjournment of the legislature. To prevent a 
failure in the local administration, and from necessity, the legislature 
made a number of temporary appointments, such as probate judge, 
and two county commissioners, and a sheriff of each county. The 
probate judge and county commissioners constitute the tribunal for 
the transaction of county business, and are invested with the power 
to appoint justices of the peace, constables, county surveyor, recorder, 
and clerk, &c. Probate judges, county commissioners, sheriffs, &c., 
are all temporary appointments, and are made elective by the people 
at the first annual election in 1857. The legislature could not have 
avoided meeting some temporary appointments. No election could 
have been held without them. There were no judges, justices of the 
peace, or other officers to conduct an election of any kind, until ap- 
pointed by the legislature. It was the exercise of a power which the 
first legislative assembly in every Territory must, of necessity, exer- 
cise, in order to put the local government in motion. We see nothing 
in this to justify revolution or a resort to force. The law for the pro- 
tection of slave property has also been much misunderstood. The 
right to pass such a law is expressly stated by Governor Keeder in 
his inaugural message, in which he says : ' A territorial legislature 
may undoubtedly act upon the question to a limited and partial ex- 
tent, and may temporarily prohibit, tolerate, or regulate slavery in 
the Territory, and in an absolute or modified form, with all the force 
and effect of any other legislative act, binding until repealed by the 
same power that enacted it.' There is nothing in the act itself, as 
has been charged, to prevent a free discussion of the sut)ject of sla- 
very. Its bearing on society, its morality or expediency, or whether 
it would be politic or impolitic to make this a slave State, can be dis- 



26 AFFAIRS OF KANSAS. 

cussed here as freely as in any State in this Union, witliout infringing 
any of the provisions of the law. To deny the right of a person to 
hold slaves under the law in this Territory is made penal ; hut heyond 
this, there is no restriction to the discussion of the slavery question, in 
any aspect in which it is capable of being considered. We do not 
wish to he understood as approving of all the laws passed by the legis- 
lature ; on the contrary, we would state that there are some that we 
do not approve of, and which are condemned by public opinion here, 
and which will no doubt be repealed or modified at the meeting of the 
next legislature. But this is nothing more than what frequently oc- 
curs, both in the legislation of Congress and of the various State 
legislatures. The remedy for such evils is to be found in public 
opinion, to which, sooner or later, in a government like ours, all laws 
must conform." 

A few days after Governor Keeder dissolved his official relations 
with the legislature, on account of the removal of the seat of govern- 
ment, and while that body was still in session, a meetiog was called 
by " many voters," to assemble at Lawrence on the 14th or 15th of 
August, 1855, " to take into consideration the propriety of calling a 
Territorial convention, preliminary to the formation of a State govern- 
ment, and other subjects of public interest." At that meeting the 
following preamble and resolutions were adopted with but one dis- 
senting voice : 

"Whereas the people of Kansas Territory have been since its set- 
tlement^ and now are, without any law-making power : therefore, 

"5e it resolved, That we, the people of Kansas Territory, in mass 
meeting assembled, irrespective of party distinctions, influenced by a 
common necessity, and greatly desirous of promoting the common 
good, do hereby call upon and request all hona-fide citizens of Kansas 
Territory, of whatever political views or predilections, to consult to- 
gether in their respective election districts, and, in mass convention 
or otherwise, elect three delegates for each representative of the legis- 
lative assembly, by proclamation of Governor Eeeder of date 10th 
March, 1855 ; said delegates to assemble in convention at the town of 
Topeka, on the 19th day of September, 1855, then and there to con- 
sider and determine upon all subjects of public interest, and particu- 
larly upon that having reference to the speedy formation of a State 
constitution, with an intention of an immediate application to be ad- 
mitted as a State into the Union of the United States of America." 

This meeting, so far as your committee have been able to ascertain, 
was the first step in that series of proceedings which resulted in the 
adoption of a constitution and State government, to be put in opera- 
tion on the 4t]i of the present month, in subversion of the Territorial gov- 
ernment established under the authority of Congress. Tlie right to 
set up the State government in defiance of the constituted authorities 
of the Territory, is based on the assumption "that the people of 
Kansas Territory have been since its settlement, and now are, without 
any law-making power ;" in the face of the well-known fact, that the 
Territorial legislature were then in session, in pursuance of the proc- 
lamation of Governor Keeder, and the organic law of the Territory. 
On the 5th of September, a "Territorial delegate convention" as- 



AFFAIRS OF KANSAS. 27 

sembletl at the Big Springs " to take into consideration the present 
exigencies of political affairs," at which, among others, the following 
'•esolutions were adopted: 

" Hefiolved, That this convention, in view of its recent repudiation of 
tlij acts of the so-called Kansas legislative assembly, res])ond most 
heartily to the call made by the people's convention of the 14th ultimo, 
for a delegate convention of the people of Kansas, to be held at To- 
peka, on the 19th instant, to consider the propriety of the formation 
of a State constitution, and such matters as may legitimately come 
before it. 

*"' Besolved, That we owe no allegiance or obedience to the tyran- 
nical enactments of this spurious legislature ; that their laws have 
no validity or binding force upon the people of Kansas ; and that 
every freeman among us is at full liberty, consistently with his 
obligations as a citizen and a man, to defy and resist them if he choose 
so to do. 

" Resolved, That we will endure and submit to these laws no 
longer than the best interests of the Territory require^ as the least of 
two evils, and will resist them to a bloody issue as soon as we ascer- 
tain that peaceable remedies shall fail, and forcible resistance shall 
furnish any reasonable prospect of success; and that in the mean- 
time we recommend to our friends throughout the Territory the organ- 
ization and discipline of volunteer companies, and the procurement 
and preparation of arms." 

With the view to a distinct understanding of the meaning of so 
much of this resolution as relates to the " organization and discipline 
of volunteer companies, and the procurement and preparation of 
arms," it may be necessary to state that there was at that time exist- 
ing in the Territory a secret military organization, which had been 
formed for political objects prior to the alleged invasion, at the elec- 
tion on the 30th of March, and which held its first " grand encamp- 
ment at Lawrence, February 8th, 1855." Your committee have been 
put in possession of a small printed pamphlet, containing the " con- 
stitution and ritual of the grand encampment and regiments of the 
Kansas legion of Kansas Territory, adopted April 4th, 1855," which, 
during the recent disturbances in that Territory, was taken on the 
person of one George F. Warren, who attempted to conceal and destroy 
the same by thrusting it into his mouth, and biting and chewing it. 
Although somewhat mutilated by the ""tooth prints," it bears inter- 
nal evidence of being a genuine document, authenticated by the origi- 
nal signatures of " G. W. Hutchinson, grand general," and " J. K. 
Goodwin, grand quartermaster." On the last page was a charter of 
the Kansas legion, authorizing the said George F. Warren, from whose 
mouth the document was taken, to form a new regiment, as follows : 

" Charter of tlie Kansas Legion. 

" United States of America, } 
Territory of Kansas. ) 

'' Know all men by these presents, that loe, the Grand Encamp- 
ment of the Kansas Legion of Kansas Territory, have created, char- 



28 AFFAIRS OF KANSAS. 

terecl, and empowered, and by these presents do create, charter, and 
empower George F. Warren to be regiment 

, No. , of the Kansas Legion; and, as such, they are hereby 

invested with all and singular the authority and privileges with 
which each and every regiment is invested, working under a charter 
from the Grand Encampment, 

" In witness whereof, we have hereunto set our hands this sixteenth 
day of August, one thousand eight hundred and fifty-five. 

"G. W.HUTCHINSON, 

" Grand General. 
''J. K. GOODWIN, 

"Grand Quartermaster." 

The constitution consists of six articles regulating the organization 
of the " Grand Encampment," which is " composed of representatives 
elected from each subordinate regiment existing in the Territory, as 
hereafter provided. The officers of the Grand Encampment shall 
consist of a Grand General, Grand Vice-General, Grand Quartermas- 
ter, Grand Paymaster, Grand Aid, two Grand Sentinels, and Grand 
Chaplain. 

'•The Grand Encampment shall make all nominations for Territo- 
rial officers at large, and immediately after such nominations shall 
have been made, the Grand General shall communicate the result to 
every regiment in the Territory." 

The officers of the " Grand Encampment" are Grand General Rev. 
G. W. Hutchinson, Lawrence, K. T. 

Grand Vice-General, C. K. Holliday, Topeka, K. T. 

Grand Quartermaster, J. K. Goodwin, Lawrence, K. T. 

Grand Paymaster, Charles Leib, M. D., Leavenworth city, K. T. 

By " the constitution of the subordinate encampment," " the offi- 
cers of each subordinate regiment shall consist of a colonel, a lieuten- 
ant-colonel, a quartermaster, aid, and two sentinels. The regiment 
located in each and every election district shall make nominations for 
all candidates for offices in their respective districts ; but Avhere there 
shall be two or more regiments in any one election district, of what- 
ever kind, these nominations shall be made by delegates from the re- 
spective encampments within said district." 

The "ritual" continues the order of business and modes of pro- 
ceeding in the subordinate encampment under the following heads : 

1st. Reading the minutes by the quartermaster. 

2d. Proposals for new recruits. 

3d. Voting for same. 

4th. Initiation of recruits. 

5th. Reports of committees. 

6th. Unfinished business appearing on the minutes. 

Yth. Miscellaneous business. 

8th. Adjournment. 

The " opening ceremony" of the subordinate encampments is as 
follows : 

" The colonel, lieutenant-colonel, quartermaster, paymaster, aid, 



AFFAIRS OF KANSAS. 29 

and sentinels, being in their respective place.s_, the regiment shall he 
called and thus addressed hy the colonel : 

'■'■Colonel. Fellow-soldiers in the free-State army : The hour has 
arrived when we must resume the duties devolving upon us. Let us 
each, with a heart devoted to justice, patriotism, and liberty, attend 
closely to all the regulations laid down for our government and ac- 
tion ; each laboring to make this review pleasant and 2>i'ofi table to 
ourselves, and a blessing to our country. Aid, are the sentinels at 
their posts, with closed doors? 

"Aid. They are. 

" Colonel. Aid, you will now review the troops in the regiment's 
passwords. 

''Aid. (After examination.) I have examined them personally, 
and find each correct. 

"Colonel. I pronounce this regiment arrayed and ready for service." 

Then follows tbe process of initiating new recruits, who are prop- 
erly vouched for by members of the order, the preliminary obliga- 
tions to observe secrecy, the catechism to which the candidate is sub- 
jected, and the explanations of the colonel in respect to the objects of 
the order, which are thus stated : 

"First, to secure to Kansas the blessing and prosperity of being a 
free State ; and, secondly, to protect the ballot-box from the leprous 

TOUCH OF UNPRINCIPLED MEN." 

These and all other questions being satisfactorily answered, the 
final oath is thus administered : 

" With these explanations upon our part, we shall ask of you that 
you take with us an obligation placing yourself in the same attitude 
as before. 

" OBLIGATION. 

"I, , in the most solemn manner, here, in the presence 

of Heaven and these witnesses, bind myself that I will never reveal, 
nor cause to be revealed, either by word, look, or sign, by writing, 
printing, engraving, painting, or in any manner whatsoever, any- 
thing pertaining to this institution, save to persons duly qualified to 
receive the same. I will never reveal the nature of the organization, 
the place of meeting, the fact that any person is a membpr of the 
same, or even the existence of the organization, except to persons 
legally qualified to receive the same. Should I at any time with- 
draw, or be suspended or expelled from this organization, I will 
keep this obligation to the end of life. If any books, papers, or mo- 
neys belonging to this organization be intrusted to my care or keep- 
ing, I will faithfully and comj)letely deliver up the same to my suc- 
cessor in office, or any one legally authorized to receive them. I will 
never knowingly propose a person for membership in this order who 
is not in favor of making Kansas a free State, and whom I feel satis- 
fied will exert his entire influence to bring about this result. I will 
support, maintain, and abide by any honorable movement made by 
the organization to secure this great end, whicli will not conflict with 
the laws of the country and the constitution of the United States. I 



30 AFFAIRS OF KANSAS. 

will unflincliingly vote for and support the candidates nominated hj 
this organization in preference to any and all others. 

"To all of this obligation I do most solemnly promise and affirm, 
binding myself under the j)enalty of being expelled from this organi- 
zation, of having my name published to the several Territorial en- 
campments as a perjurer before Heaven and a traitor to my country, 
of passing through life scorned and reviled by man, frowned on by 
devils, forsaken by angels, and abandoned by God." 

The " closing ceremony " is as follows : 

" [Colonel.] Fellow-soldiers : I trust this review has been both 
pleasant and profitable to all. We met as friend. ; let us part as 
brothers, remembering that we seek no wrong to any; and our bond 
of union in battling for the right must tend to make us better men, 
better neighbors, and better citizens. We thank you for your kind- 
ness and attention_, and invite you all to be present at our next re- 
view, to be holden at , on next, at o'clock p. m. 

Sentinels, you will open the doors, that our soldiers may retire pleas- 
antly and in order." 

Your committee have deemed it important to give this outline of 
the " constitution and ritual of the grand encampment and regiments 
of the Kanzas legion," as constituting the secret organization, politi- 
cal and military, in obedience to which the public demonstrations 
have been made to subvert the authority of the Territorial govern- 
ment established by Congress, by setting up a State government, 
either with or without the assent of Congress, as circiimstances should 
determine. The endorsement of this military organization, and the 
recommendation by the Big Springs convention for " the procurement 
and preparation of arms," accompanied with the distinct declaration 
that " we will resist them [the laws enacted by the Kansas legisla- 
ture] to a bloody issue, as soon as we ascertain that peaceable reme- 
dies shall fail, and forcible resistance shall furnish any reasonable 
prospect of success," would seem to admit of no other interpretation 
than that, in the event that the courts of justice shall sustain the va- 
lidity of those laws, and Congress shall refuse to admit Kansas as a 
State with the constitution to be formed at Topeka, they will set up an 
independent government in defiance of the federal authority. 

The same purpose is clearly indicated by the other proceedings of 
this Coiivcritiun, in which it is declared that "we witli scorn repudi- 
ate the election-law, so called," and nominate Governor Keeder for 
Congress, to be voted for on a different day from that authorized by 
law, at an election to be held by judges and clerks not appointed in 
pursuance of any legal authority^ and not to be sworn by any person 
autliorized by law to administer oaths ; and the returns to be made, 
and result proclaimed, and certificate granted, in a mode and by per- 
sons n t permitted to perform these acts by any law, in or out of the 
Territory. 

In accepting the nomination. Governor Eeeder addressed the con- 
vention as follows ; and, among other things, said : 

"In giving him this nomination in this manner, they had strength- 
ened his arms to do their work, and, in return, he would now pledge 



AFFAIRS OF KANSAS. 31 

to them a steady, iinflincliing, pertinacity of purpose, never-tiring 
industry, dogged perseverance, and, in all the abilities with which 
Grod had endowed him, to the righting of their wrongs, and tlie final 
triumph of their cause. He believed, from the circumstances which 
had for the last eight months surrounded him, and which had at the 
same time placed in his possession many facts, and bound him, heart 
and soul, to the oppressed voters of Kansas, that he could do much 
towards obtaining a redress of their grievances. 

" He said that, day by day, a crisis was coming upon us ; that, in 
after-times, this would be to posterity a turning-point, a marked 
period, as are to us the opening of the Revolution, the adoption of the 
Declaration of Independence, and the era of the alien and sedition 
laws ; that we should take each carefully, so that eacli be a step of 
progress, and so that no violence be done to the tie which binds the 
American people together. He alluded to the unprecedented tyranny 
under which we are and have been ; and said that, if any one sup- 
posed that institutions were to be imposed by force upon a free and 
enlightened people, they never knew, or had forgotten, the history of 
our fathers. American citizens bear in their breasts too much of the 
spirit of other and trying days, and have lived too long amid the 
blessings of liberty, to' sul3mit to oppression from any quarter : and 
the man who, having once been free, could tamely submit to tyranny, 
was fit to be a slave. 

'' He urged the Free-State men of Kansas to forget all minor issues, 
and pursue determinedly the one great object, never swerving, but 
steadily pressing on, as did the wise men who followed the star to the 
manger, looking back only for fresh encouragement. He counselled 
that peaceful resistance be made to the tyrannical and unjust laws ot 
the spurious legislature ; that appeals to the courts, to the ballot-box^ 
and to Congress, be made for relief from this oppressive load ; that 
violence should be deprecated as long as a single hope of peaceable 
redress remained ; but if, at last, all these should fail — if, in the 
proper tribunals, there is no hope for our dearest rights, outraged and 
profaned — if we are still to suffer, that corrupt men may reap har- 
vests watered by our tears — then there is one more chance for justice. 
God has provided, in the eternal frame of things, redress for every 
wrong ; and there remains to us still the steady eye and the strong 
arm, and we must conquer, or mingle the bodies of the oppressors 
with those of the oppressed upon the soil which the Declaration of 
Independence no longer protects. But he was not at all appreliensive 
that such a crisis would ever arrive. He believed that justice might 
be iound far short of so dreadful an extremity ; and, even should an 
appeal to arms come, it was his opinion, that if we are well prepared, 
that moment the victory is won." 

In pursuance of the recommendation of the mass meeting lield at 
Lawrence on the 14th of August^ and endorsed by the convention 
held at the Big Springs on the 5tli and 6th of September, a conven- 
tion was held at Topeka on the 19th and 20th of September, at Avhicli 
it was determined to hold another convention at the same place on the 
fourth Tuesday of October, for the purpose of forming a constitution 



32 AFFAIRS OF KANSAS. 

and State government ; and to this end such proceedings were had as 
were docmed necessary for giving the notices, conducting the election 
of delegates, making the returns, and assembling the convention. 
With regard to the regularity of these proceedings, your committee 
see no necessity for further criticism than is to he found in the fact 
that it was the movement of a political party instead of the whole 
body of the people of Kansas, conducted without the sanction of law, 
and in defiance of the constituted authorities, for the avowed purpose 
of overthrowing the Territorial government established by Congress. 

The constitutional convention met at Topeka on the fourth Tuesday 
of October, and organized by electing Colonel J. H. Lane president, 
who, in returning his acknowledgments for the honor, repudiated the 
validity of the Territorial legislature and its acts in these words : 

" Gentlemen of the convention : For the position assigned me, ac- 
cept my tbanks. You have met, gentlemen, on no ordinary occasion, 
to accomplish no ordinary purpose. You are the first legal repre- 
sentatives the real settlers of Kansas have ever had. You comprise 
the first legally elected representative body ever assembled in the , 
Territory," &c. 

^'^ Friday, October 26. — Mr. Smith offered the following resolution, 
instructing the standing committees : 

'■^Resolved, That the various committees of this convention be, and 
they are hereby, instructed to frame their work, having in vi(^w an 
immediate organization of a State government." 

'■^October 30. — In the evening session the debates ran high upon 
Mr. Smith's resolution in reference to an immediate State organiza- 
tion. The mover of the resolution was in favor of electing State of- 
ficers at once. He would advise no hesitation ; he would present a 
bold front, and waver not at all. The Territory was without laws ; 
life and property were unprotected. The Territorial government had 
broken down. He would not leave it an hour for the action of Con- 
gress after an application for admission, but would set up an inde- 
pendent form of government," &c. 

Mr. Emery said: " Now, Mr. Chairman, what does this resolution 
contemplate ? What is proposed to be done ? It first proposes to 
supersede the present weak and inefficient Territorial government, 
and hence it enunciates the fundamental idea of the constitutional 
movement. Ay, it does more. It proposes to prove into a fact tlie lead- 
ingidea of the Declaration of Independence, thehighesthuman authority 
in American politics, which is this : whenever any form of govern- 
ment becomes destructive of the ends for which it was instituted, it is 
therightofthe people toalter or abolish it, and to institutea new govern- 
ment. It proposes to force theories of human rights into facts, to practi- 
cally apply this great principle to the wants and the necessities of the 
down-trodden peojile of Kansas. I do not question this right of the people, 
and certainly no gentleman on this floor will disagree with me. If 
he does, he occupies a most extraordinary position, and consistency 
would suggest that he withdraw from tliis body. No, when we say 
that we will take measures to supersede and render unnecessary that 
thing now extended over us called a Territorial government — when we 



ATTAIRS OP KANSAS. 33 

say and maintain tliat we have a right guarantied by the constitu- 
tion, to have a form of government resting on our own consent and 
free will, we are only doing what, as American citizens, we have a 
right to do; we only propose to carry out the doctrine, much abused 
and grossly misrepresented as it has been — I mean the doctrine of 
squatter sovereignty, under which we are assembled here to-day, and 
in pursliance of the principles of which we hope to extricate ourselves 
from our present unhappy condition." 

It is but just to state, that, in another part of this same speech, 
Mr. Emery declared himself opposed to an immediate election "under 
the new constitution, and an immediate session of the general 
assembly, when all the wheels of State government shall be put in 
motion, irrespective of the action of Congress, upon due application 
for admission. Mr. E. presented his objections to the position 
of Mr. Smith, and maintained the views above indicated. He con- 
tended that, inasmuch as the Territorial form of government was re- 
cognised by the Supreme Court of the United States, and hence a 
legal form of government, no other government could be substituted 
so long as that was in existence, without risking the most serious 
consequences, to say the least." 

In reply to the advocates of immediate State organization, Mr. 
Delahay, of Leavenworth, said : 

" Under the defined rights of squatter sovereignty, as enunciated 
by the Kansas-Nebraska act, it seems reasonable that the people have 
the right to take upon themselves the burdens of a government ; but 
I question the right of the people of Kansas to organize- a new gov- 
ernment created by Congress. The gentleman from Lawrence [Col. 
Lane] ha^ assumed as a fundamental position, in advocating an im- 
mediate State organization, that neither government nor local law 
exists in this Territory. Sir, I must dissent from that position. I 
deny, Mr. Chairman, that a Territorial government can be legally 
abolished by the election of another government. I hold, on the 
contrary, and I think that my position would be supported by our 
highest legal authorities, that the power of a Territorial government 
ceases only by the enactment of the body which created it ; in other 
words, that the government and laws of Kansas can be abolished by 
Congress alone, and are beyond the reach of this Territorv, or any 
other power. I do not pretend to deny that, as all civil power is de- 
rived from the people, they have the moral right to abolish unjust 
laws, or to overthrow obnoxious governments by force ; but I do ([ues- 
tion the expediency of effecting a reform in Kansas by any overt act 
of rebellion. For I must confess, Mr. Chairman, wliile I cast not ' 
the shadow of suspicion on the niotives of the advocates of this " 
measure, that from the point of vieAv from whicli I regard this ques- 
tion, it a])pears to me to be an act of rebellion," 

Your committee have made these voluminous extracts from the best 
authenticated reports which they have been able to obtain of the pro- 
ceedings of the convention, for the purpose of showing that it was 
distinctly understood on all sides that the adojition of the proposition 
for organizing the State government before the assent of Congress 
for the admission of the State should be obtained, was a decision in 
Rep. 34 3 



34 AFFAIRS OF KANSAS. 

favor of repudiating the laws, and overthrowing the Territorial gov- 
ernment in defiance of the authority of Congress, By this decision^ 
as incorporated into the schedule to the constitution, the vote on the 
ratification to the constitution was to he held on the 15th of Decemhery 

1855, and the election for all State officers on the third Tuesday of 
January, 1856. The third section of the schedule is as follows : 

" The general assembly shall meet on the 4th day of March, A. D. 

1856, at the city of Topeka, at 12 m., at which time and place the 
governor, lieutenant-governor, secretary of state, judges of supreme 
court, treasurer, auditor, State printer, reporter and clerk of supreme 
court, and attorney general, shall appear, take the oath of office, and 
enter upon the discharge of the duties of their respective offices under 
this constitution ; and shall continue in office in the same manner, and 
during the same period, they would have done had they been elected 
on the first Monday of August, A. D. 1856." 

The elections for all these officers were held at the times specified ; 
and on the 4th day of the present month the new government w^as to 
have been put in operation, in conflict with the Territorial government 
established by Congress, and for the avowed purpose of subverting and 
overthrowing the same, without reference to the action of Congress 
upon their application for admission into the Union. 

Your committee are not aware of any case in the history of our own 
country which can be fairly cited as an example, much less a justifi- 
cation, for these extraordinary proceedings. Cases have occurred in 
which the inhabitants of particular Territories have been permitted 
to form constitutions, and take the initiatory steps for the organiza- 
tion of State governments, preparatory to their admission into the 
Union, without obtaining the previous assent of Congresi^ ; but in 

EVERY INSTANCE THE PROCEEDING HAS ORIGINATED WITH, AND BEEN CON- 
DUCTED IN SUBORDINATION TO, THE AUTHORITY OF THE LOCAL GOVERNMENTS 
ESTABLISHED OR RECOGNISED BY THE GOVERNMENT OF THE UnITED StATES. 

Michigan, Arkansas, Florida, and California^ are sometimes cited as 
cases in point. Michigan was erected into a Territory in pursuance of 
the ordinance of the 13th of July, 1787, as recognised and carried into 
efiect by acts of Congress subsequent to the adoption of the federal 
constitution. In that ordinance it was provided that the Territory 
northwest of the Ohio river should be divided into not less than three 
nor more than five States ; " and whenever any of said States shall 
have sixty thousand free inhabitants therein, such State shall be ad- 
mitted, by its delegates, into the Congress of the United States, on an 
equal footing with the original States in all respects whatever, and 
shall be at liberty to form a permanent constitution and State gov- 
ernment." 

In pursuance of this provision of their organic law, the legislature 
of the Territory of Michigan passed an act providing for a convention 
of the people to form a constitution and State government, which 
was accordingly done in obedience to the laws and constituted authori- 
ties of the Territory. The legislature of the Territory of Arkansas, 
having ascertained by a census that the Territory contained about 
fifty-one thousand eight hundred inhabitants, at a time when the 
ratio of representation in Congress awarded one representative to each 



ATPAIRS OF KANSAS. 35 

for^cy-sevcii tlioiisand seven hundred inhabitants, passed an act au- 
thorizin<2j tlie people to form a constitution and ask for admission 
into the Union, as they supposed they liad a right to do under the 
treaty acquiring the territory'' from France, which guarantied their 
^admission as soon as may be consistent with the federal constitution. 
TJpon this point your committee adopt tlie legal opinion of the Attor- 
ney General of the United States, (B. F. Butler,) as expressed in the 
following extract : 

" But I am not prepared to say that all proceedings on this subject, 
on the part of the citizens of Arkansas, will be illegal, Tlicy un- 
doubtedly possess the ordinary privileges and immunities of citizens 
of the United States. Among these, is the right to assemble and to 
petition tlic government for the redress of grievances ; in the exercise 
•of this right, the inhabitants of Arkansas may peaceably meet together 
in primary assemblies, or in conventions chosen by such assemblies, 
for the purpose of petitioning Congress to abrogate the Territorial 
government;, and to admit them into the Union as an indejjendent 
State, The particular form which they may give to their petition can- 
not be material, so long as they confine themselves to th-e mere right 
of petitioning-, and conduct all their proceedings in a peaceable man- 
ner. And as the power of Ck)ngi'ess over the whole subject is plenary 
•and unlimitxi'd, they may accept any constitution, however framed, 
which in their judgment meets the sense of the people to be affected 
by it. If, therefore, the citisensof Arkansas think proper to accom- 
pany their })etition with a written constitution, framed and agreed on 
by their primary assemblies, or by a convention of delegates chovsen 
■by such assemblies, I perceive no legal objection to their power to do 
so, nor to any measures which may be taken to collect the sense of the 
people in respect to it ; provided, always, that such measurcs be com- 
menced and prosecuted in a peaceable manner, in strict subordination 
to the existing Territorial government, and in entire subserviency to 
the power of Congress to adopt, reject, or disregard them at their 
pleasure. 

'' It is, however, very obvious, that all measures commenced and 
prosecuted with a design to subvert the Territorial government, and 
to establish and put in force in its place a nev/ government, v/ithoiit 
the consent of Congress, will be unlawful. The laws establishing the 
Territorial government must continue in force until abrogated hy 
Congress ; and, in the meantime, it will be the duty of the governor, 
and of all the Territorial officers, as well as of the President, to take 
care that they are faithfully executed." 

On the 11th day of January, 1839, a committee of the constitu- 
tional convention of Florida addressed a memorial to Congress, in 
which they state that in 1837 the Territorial council passed a law 
submitting to the people the qiiestion of "State" or "Territory," 
to be decided at the election of delegates to Congress in the month of 
May of that year ; that a decided majority of the suffrages given at 
that election was in favor of " State ;" that the legislative council of 
1838, in obedience to the expressed wishes of the people, enacted a 
law authorizing the holding of a convention to form and adopt a 
State constitution ; that the convention assembled on the 3d of De- 



36 . AFFAIRS OF KANSAS, 

cember, 1838, and continued in session until tlie lltli of Januaiy^ 
1839 ; and that, on behalf of the people of Florida, they transmit the 
"constitution, or form of government,"' and ask for admission into 
the Union, It is also stated in the memorial that in 1838 a census 
of the Territory was taken, in obedience to a law passed by the Ter- 
ritorial council, and that this census, although taken during the 
ravages of Indian liostilities, when a large portion of the inhabitants 
could not be found at home, showed an aggregate j)Oi)ulation of forty- 
eight thousand two hundred and twenty-three persons, which the 
memorialists insisted furnished satisfactory assurance of a sufficient 
population to entitle them to admission, according to the treaty ac- 
quiring the country from Spain, and the then ratio of representation^ 
which awarded a member of Congress to each 41,700 inhabitants. 
Congress failing to yield its assent to the admission of Florida for 
more than six years after this constitution was formed and applica- 
tion made, the people of Florida during all that period remained 
loyal to the Territorial government, and obedient to its laws, and did 
not assume the right to supersede the existing government by putting 
into operation a State government until the assent of Congress was 
obtained in 1845. 

The circumstances connected with the formation of the constitution 
and State government of California are peculiar. During the Mex- 
ican war the country was conquered and occupied by our troops, and 
the civil government administered by the military authorities under 
the war power. According to an official communication of General 
Persil'or F. Smith, acting governor of California, to a committee of citi- 
zens of San Francisco, under date of March 27, 1849, withholding his 
"recognition and concurrence " in their proposition "to organize a 
legislative assembly, and to appoint judges and other ministerial offi- 
cers, and to enact suitable laws to establish principles of justice and 
equity, and to give protection to life, liberty, and property,' it ap- 
pears that the President of the United States (Mr. Polk) and his 
cabinet officially promulgated the following opinions as the decision 
of the Executive on the points stated : 

1st. That at the conclusion of the treaty v^ith Mexico, on the 30th 
of May, 1848, the military government existing in California was a 
government de facto. 

2d. That it^ of necessity, continue until Congress provide another ; 
because, if it cease, anarchy must ensue : thus inferring that no 
power but Congress can establish any government. 

It also appears, i'rom the i)roclamation of General Riley, acting 
governor, to the people of California, dated June 3d, 1849, that 
a government de facto was constituted as follows : 

" A brief summary of the organization of the present government 
may not be uninteresting. It consists — First, of a governor appointed 
by the supreme government; in default of such appointment, the office 
is temporarily vested in the commanding military officer of the de- 
partment. The powers and duties of the governor are of a limited 
character, but fully defined and pointed out by the laws. Second, a 
secretary, whose duties and powers are also properly defined. Third, 
a territorial or departmental legislature, with limited powers to pass 



APFAIRS OF KANSAS. 37 

laws of a local character. Fourth, a superior court (tribunal supe- 
rior) of the Territory^ consisting of four judges and a fiscal. Fifth, 
a prefect and sub-prefects for each district, who are charged with the 
preservation of the public order and tlie execution of the laws ; their 
duties correspond, in a great measure, with those of district marshals 
and sheriffs. Sixth, a judge of first instance, for each district. This 
office is, by a custom not inconsistent with the laws, vested in the 
first alcalde of the district. Seventh, alcaldes, who have concurrent 
jurisdiction among themselves in the same district, but are subordi- 
nate to the higher judicial tribunals. Eighth, local justices of the 
peace. Ninth, ayuntamientos, or town councils. The powers and 
functions of all these officers are fully defined in the laws of the 
country, and are almost identical with those of the corresponding of- 
ficers in the Atlantic and Western States." 

On the 3d of April, 1849, President Taylor appointed Thomas 
Butler King agent, for the purpose of conveying important instructions 
to our military and naval commanders who were intrusted with the 
administration of the civil government cle facto in California, and to 
make known to the people his opinions and wishes in respect to the 
formation of a constitution and State government preparatory to their 
•admission into the Union. What these opinions and wishes were, 
are distinctly stated by the President in the following extract from 
his special message to Congress on the 23d of January, 1850 : 

' ' I did not hesitate to express to the people of those Territories my 
desire that each Territory should, if prepared to comply with the re- 
quisitions of the constitution of the United States^ form a plan of a 
State constitution,, and submit the same to Congress, with a prayer 
for admission into the Union as a State; but I did not anticipate, sug- 
gest, or authorize the establishment of any such government without 
the assent of Congress ; nor did I authorize any government agent or 
officer to interfere with or exercise any influence or control over the 
election of delegates, or over any convention, in making or modifying 
their domestic institutions, or any of the provisions of their proposed 
constitution. On the contrary, the instructions by my orders were, 
that all measures of domestic policy adopted by the people of Cali- 
fornia must originate solely with themselves ; that, while the Execu- 
tive of the United States was desirous to protect them in the forma- 
tion of any government republican in its character, to be at the proper 
time submitted to Congress, yet it was to be distinctly understood 
that the plan of such a government must, at the same time, be the 
result of their own deliberate choice, and originate with themselves, 
without the interference of the p]xecutive," 

On the 30th of June, 1850, Oeneral Riley, in his ca])acity as civil gov- 
ernor of California, reports to the government at Washington that — 

"On the 3d instant I issued my proclamation to the people of Cal- 
ifornia, defining what was understood to be the legal position of 
affairs here, and pointing out the course it was deemed advisable to 
pursue in order to procure a new political organization, better adapt- 
ed to the character and i)resent condition of the country. The course 
indicated in my proclamation will be adopted by the people, almost 
unanimously ; and there is now little or no doubt that the convention 



38 AFFAIRS OF KANSAS, 

will meet on the first of September next, and form a State constitutioryy 
to be submitted to Congress in the early part of the coming session. 

"A few prefer a Territorial organization, but I think a majority 
will be in favor of a State government, so as to avoid all further diffi- 
culties respecting the question of slavery. This question will prob- 
ably be submitted, together vfith the constitution, to a direct vote of 
the people, in order tliat the wishes of the people af California may 
be clearly and fully expressed. Of course, the constitution or plan 
of a Territorial government fo-rraed by this convention can have nO' 
legal force till approved by Congress," 

On the 12th day of October General Riley,, acting governor, i&aued 
the following proclamation : 

'^' To tlie People of Cullfornia. 

"The delegates of the people, assembled in convention, hare formed 
a constitution which is now presented for your ratification. The 
time and manner of voting on this constitution, and of holding the 
first general election, are clearly set forth in the schedule. The 
whole subject is therefore left for your unbiased and deliberate con- 
sideration. 

" The prefect (or person exercising the functions of that office) of 
each district will designate the places for opening the polls, and give- 
due notice of the election, in accordance with the provisions of the 
constitution and schedule. 

" The people are now called upon to form a government for them- 
selves, and to designate such officers as they desire to make and exe- 
cute the laws. Thr,t their choice may be wisely made, and that the 
government so organized may secure the permanent welfare and haj)- 
piness of the people of the new State, is the sincere and earnest wish 
of the present executive, who, if the constitution be ratified, v/ill with 
pleasure surrender his powers to whomsoever the people may desig- 
nate as his successor. 

•'Given at Monterey, California, this twelfth day of October, in the 
year of our Lord eighteen hundred and forty-nine. 

"B. RILEY, 
'■^Brevet Bruj. Gen. TJ.. S. A., and Governm' of California, 

" Official : H. W. HALLECK, 

" Brevet Captain, and Secretary of State."' 

These facts and official papers prove conclusively that the pro- 
position to the people of California to hold a convention and organize 
a State government, originated with, and that all the proceedings 
were had in subordination to, the authority and supremacy of the 
existing local government of the Territory, under the advice and with 
the approval of the executive government of the United States. 
Hence the action of the people of California in forming their constitu- 
tion and State government, and of Congress in admitting the State 
into the Union, cannot be cited, with the least show of justice or fair- 
ness, in justification or palliation of the revolutionary movements to 
subvert the government which Congress has established in Kansas. 



AFFAIRS OF KANSAS, 39 

Not can the insurgents derive aid or comfort from tlie position 
assumed by either party to the unfortunate controversy which arose 
in the State of Khode Island a few years ago, when an effort was 
made to change the organic law, and set up a State government in 
opposition to the one then in existence, under the charter granted by 
Charles the Second of England. Those who were engaged in that 
unsuccessful struggle assumed, as fundamental truths in our system 
of government, that Ehode Island was a sovereign State in all that 
pertained to her internal aifairs ; that the right to change their 
organic law was an essential attribute of sovereignty ; that, inasmuch 
as the charter under which the existing government was organized 
contained no provision for changing or amending the same, and the 
people had not delegated that right to the legislature or any other 
tribunal, it followed, as a matter of course, that they had retained it, 
and were at liberty to exercise it in such manner as to them should 
seem wise, just, and proper. 

Without deeming it necessary to express any opinion on this occa- 
sion in reference to the merits of that controversy, it is evident that 
the principles upon which it Avas conducted are not involved in the 
revolutionary struggle now going on in Kanzas ; for the reason, that 
the sovereignty^ of a Territory remains in abeyance, suspended in the 
United States, in trust for the people, until they shall be admitted 
into the Union as a State. In the mean time they are entitled to en- 
joy and exercise all the privileges and rights of self-government, in 
subordination* to the constitution of the United States, and in obedi- 
ence to their organic law passed by Congress in pursuance of tliat in- 
strument. These rights and privileges are all derived from the con- 
stitution through the act of Congress, and must be exercised and en- 
joyed in subjection to all the limitations and restrictions which that 
constitution imposes. Hence, it is clear that the people of the Ter- 
ritory have no inherent sovereign right under the constitution of the 
United States to annul the laws and resist the authority of the Terri- 
torial government which Congress has established in obedience to the 
constitution. 

In tracing, step by step, the origin and history of these Kansas 
difficulties, your committee have been profoundly impressed with the 
significant fact, that each one has resulted from an attempt to violate 
or circumvent the principles and provisions of the act of Congress for 
the organization of Kansas and Nebraska. The leading idea and 
fundamental principle of the Kansas-Nebraska act, as expressed in 
the law itself, was to leave the actual settlers and hona-fde inhahitants 
of each Territory ^^ perfectly free to form and regulate their domestic 
institutions in their own way, suhject only to the constitution of the 
United States," While this is declared to be "the true intent and 
meaning of the act," those who were opposed to allowing the people 
of the Territory, preparatory to tlieir admission into the Union as a 
State, to decide the slavery question for themselves, failing to accom- 
plish their purpose in the halls of Congress, and under the authority 
of the constitution, immediately resorted in their respective States to 
unusual and extraordinary means to control the political destinies 
and shape the domestic institutions of Kansas, in defiance of the 



40 AFFAIRS OF KANSAS. 

wishes and regardless of the rights of the people of that Territory as 
guarantied hy their organic law. Combinations in one section of the 
Union to stimulate an unnatural antl false system of emigration, witli 
the view of controlling the elections, and forcing the domestic institu- 
tions of the Territory to assimilate to those of the non-slaveholding 
States, were followed, as might have been foreseen, by the use of 
similar means in the slaveholding States, to produce directly the 
opposite result. To these causes, and to these alone, in the opinion 
of your committee, may be traced the origin and progress of all the 
controversies and disturbances with which Kansas is now convulsed. 
If these unfortunate troubles have resulted as natural consequences 
from unauthorized and improper schemes of foreign interference with 
the internal affairs and domestic concerns of the Territory, it is appa- 
rent that the remedy must be sought in a strict adherence to the prin- 
ciples, and rigid enforcement of the provisions, of the organic law. 
In this connexion your committee feel sincere satisfaction in com- 
mending the messages and proclamation of the President of the 
United States, in which we have the gratifying assurance that the 
supremacy of the laws will be maintained ; that rebellion will be 
crushed ; that insurrection will be suppressed ; that aggressive intru- 
sion for the purpose of deciding elections, or any other purpose, will 
be repelled ; that unauthorized intermeddling in the local concerns 
of the Territory, both from adjoining and distant States, will be pre- 
vented ; that the federal and local laws will be vindicated against all 
attempts of organized resistance; and that the people of the Territory 
will be protected in the establishment of their own institutions, undis- 
turbed by encroachments from w"ithout, and in the full enjoyment of 
the rights of s-elf-government assured to them by the constitution and 
the organic law. 

In view of these assurances, given under the conviction that the ex- 
isting laws confer all the authority necessary to the performance of 
these important duties, and that the whole available force of the 
United States will be exerted to the extent required for their perform- 
ance, your committee repose in entire confidence that peace, and secu- 
rity, and law, will prevail in Kansas. If any further evidence were 
necessary to prove that all the collisions and difficulties in Kansas 
have been produced by the schemes of foreign interference which have 
been developed in this report, in violation of the principles and in eva- 
sion of the provisions of the Kansas-Nebraska act, it may be found in 
the fact that in Nebraska, to which the emigrant aid societies did not 
extend their operations, and into which the stream of emigration was 
permitted to flow in its usual and natural channels, nothing has 
occurred to disturb the peace and harmony of the Territory, while the 
principle of self-government, in obedience to the constitution, has 
had fair play, and is quietly working out its legitimate results. 

It now only remains for your committee to respond to the two 
specific recommendations of the President in his special message. 
They are as follows : 

"■ This, it seems to me, can be best accomplished by providing thatj 
when the inhabitants of Kansas may desire it, and shall be of suffi- 
cient numbers to constitute a State, a convention of delegates, duly 



AFFAIRS OF KANSAS. 41 

elected by the qualified voters, shall assemble to frame a constitution, 
and thus prepare, through regular and lawful means, for its admis- 
sion into the Union as a State. I respectfully recommend the enact- 
ment of a law to that eft'cct. 

"I recommend, also, that a special appropriation be made to defray 
any expense which may become requisite in the execution of the laws 
or the maintenance of public order in the Territory of Kansas." 

In compliance with the first recommendation, your committee ask 
leave to report a bill authorizing the legislature of the Territory to 
provide by law for the election of delegates by the people, and the 
assembling of a convention to form a constitution and State govern- 
ment pre}»aratory to their admission into the Union on an equal foot- 
ing with the original -States, so soon as it shall appear, by a census 
to be taken under the direction of the governor, by the authority of 
the legislature, that the Territory contains ninety-three thousand four 
hundred and twenty inhabitants — that being the number required by 
the present ratio of representation for a member of Congress. 

In compliance with tlie other recommendation, your committee pro- 
pose to offer to the appropriation bill an amendment appropriating 
such sum as shall be found necessary, by the estimates to be obtained, 
for the purpose indicated in the recommendation of the President. 

All of which is respectfully submitted to the Senate by your com- 
mittee. 



42 AFFAIRS OF KANSAS. 



MINORITY REPORT, 

Submitted by Mr. Collamer, and ordered to be printed with tlie report 

of the committee. 

Vieivs of the minority of the Committee on Territories, to whom icas re- 
ferred so much of the annual message of the President as relates to 
Territorial affairs, the message of the President of 24:th January in 
relation to Ka7isas Territo7'y, and the message of the President of the 
18th February, in answer to the resolution of the Senate of the 4th 
February, relative to affairs in Kansas. 

Thirteen of the present prosperous States of this Union passed 
through the period of apprenticeship or pupilage of territorial train- 
ing, under the guardianship of Congress, preparatory to assuming their 
proud rank of manhood as sovereign and independent States. This 
period of their pupilage was, in every case, a period of the good offices 
of parent and child, in the kind relationship sustained between the 
national and the Territorial government, and may be remembered with 
feelings of gratitude and pride. We have fallen on different times. 
A Territory of our government is now convulsed with violence and 
discord, and the whole family of our nation is in a state of excitement 
and anxiety. The national executive power is put in motion, the 
army in requisition, and Congress is invoked for interference. 

In this case, as in all others of difficulty, it becomes necessary to 
inquire what is the true cause of existing trouble, in order to apply 
effectual cure. It is but temporary palliatives to deal with the exter- 
nal and more obvious manifestations and developments, while the real, 
jjrocuring cause lies unattended to, and uncorrected, and unremoved. 

It is said that organized opposition to law exists in Kansas. That, 
if existing, may probably be suppressed by the President, by the use 
of the army ; and so, too, may invasions by armed bodies from 
Missouri, if the Executive be sincere in its efforts ; but when this is 
done, while the cause of trouble remains, the results will continue with 
renewed and increased developments of danger. 

Let us, then, look fairly and undisguisedly at this subject, in its true 
character and history. Wherein does this Kansas Territory differ 
from all our other Territories, which have been so peacefully and suc- 
cessfully carried through, and been developed into the manhood of in- 
dependent States ? Can that difference account for existing troubles ? 
Can that difference, as a cause of trouble, be removed ? 

The first and great point of difference between the Territorial 
government of Kansas and that of the thirteen Territorial govern- 
ments before mentioned, consists in the subject of slavery, the un- 
doubted cause of present trouble. 

The action of Congress in relation to all those thirteen Territories 



AFFAIRS OF KANSAS. 43 

was conducted on a uniform and prudent principle, to wit : To settle, 
by a clear provision, tiie law in relation to the subject of slavery to 
be operative in the Territory, while it remained such ; not leaving it 
in any one of those cases to be a subject of controversy within the 
same, while in the plastic gristle of its youth. This was done by 
Congress in the exercise of the same power which moulded the 
form of their organic laws, and appointed their executive and ju- 
diciary, and sometimes their legislative officers. It was the power 
provided in tlie constitution, in these words : " Congress shall have 
power to dispose of and make all needful rules and regulations re- 
specting the Territory or other property belonging to the United 
States." Settling the subject of slavery while the country remained 
a Territory, was no higher exercise of power in Congress than the 
regulation of the functions of the Territorial government, and actually 
appointing its principal functionaries. This practice commenced with 
this national government, and was continued, Avith uninterrupted 
uniformity, for more than sixty years. This practical contemporane- 
ous construction of the constitutional power of this government is too 
clear to leave room for doubt, or opportunity for scepticism. The 
peace, prosperity and success which attended this course, and the 
results which have ensued, in the formation and admission of the 
thirteen States therefrom, are most conclusive and satisfactory evi- 
dence, also, of the wisdom and prudence with which this poioer was 
exercised. Deluded must be that people who, in the pursuit of plau- 
sible theories, become deaf to lessons, and blind to the results of their 
own experience. 

Let us next inquire by what rule of uniformity Congress was 
governed, in the exercise of this power of determining the condition of 
each Territory as to slavery, while remaining a Territory, as mani- 
fested in those thirteen instances. An examination of our history 
will show that this was not done from time to time by agitation and 
local or party triumphs in Congress. The rule pursued was uniform 
and clear ; and whoever may have lost by it, peace and prosperity 
have been gained. That rule was this : 

Where slavery was actually existing in a country to any considerable 
or general extent, it was (though somewhat modified as to further impor- 
tation in some instances, as in Mississippi and Orleans Territories) suf- 
fered to remain. The fact that it had been taken and existed there 
was taken as an indication of its adaptation and local utility. AVhere 
slavery did not in fact exist to any appreciable extent, the same was, 
by Congress, expressly prohibited; so that in either case the country 
settled up without difficulty or doubt as to the character of its insti- 
tutions. In no instance was this difficult and disturbing subject left 
to the people who had and who might settle in the Territory, to be 
there an everlasting bone of contention, so long as the Territorial 
government should continue. It was ever regarded, too, as a su])ject 
in which the whole country had an interest^ and, therefore, improper 
for local legislation. 

And though whenever the people of a Territory come to form their 
own organic law, as an independent State, they would, either before 
or after their admission as a State, form and mould their institutions, 



44 AFFAIRS OF KANSAS. 

as a sovereign State, in their own way, yet it must be expected, and 
has always proved true, that the State has taken the character her 
pupiLage has prepared her for, as well in respect to slavery as in 
other respects. Hence, six of the thirteen States are free States, be- 
cause slavery was prohibited in them by Congress while Territories, 
to wit: Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Iowa. 
Seven of the thirteen are slave-holding States, because slavery was 
allowed in them by Congress while they were Territories, to wit: 
Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, Florida, Louisiana, Arkansas, and 
Missouri. 

On the fitli of March, A. D. 1820, was passed by Congress the act 
preparatory to the admission of the State of Missouri into the Union. 
Much controversy and discussion arose on the question whether a 
prohibition of slavery within said State should be inserted, and it re- 
sulted in this : that said State should be admitted without such prohi- 
bition, but that slavery should be forever prohibited in the rest of 
that country ceded to us by France lying north 36° 30' north lati- 
tude, and it was so done. This contract is known as the Missouri com- 
2)romise. Under this arrangement, Missouri was admitted as a slave- 
holding State, the same having been a slaveholding Territory. Ar- 
kansas, south of the line, was formed into a Territory, and slavery 
allowed therein, and afterwards admitted as a slaveholding State. 
Iowa was made a Territory, north of the line, and, under the opera- 
tion of the law, was settled up without slaves, and admitted as a free 
State. The country now making the Territories of Kansas and Ne- 
braska, in 1820, was almost or entirely uninhabited, and lay north 
of said line, and whatever settlers entered the same before 1851 did 
so under that law, forever forbidding slavery therein. 

In 1854 Congress passed an act establishing two new Territories — 
Nebraska and Kansas — in this region of country, where slavery had 
been prohibited for more than thirty years; and, instead of leaving 
said law against slavery in operation, or prohibiting or expressly 
allowing or establishing slavery. Congress left the subject in said Ter- 
ritories, to be discussed, agitated, and legislated on, from time to 
time, and the elections in said Territories to be conducted with refer- 
ence to that subject, from year to year, so long as they should remain 
Territories ; for, whatever laws might be passed by the Territorial 
legislatures on this subject, must be subject to change or repeal by 
those of the succeeding years. In most former Territorial governments, 
it w^as provided by law that their laws were subject to the revision of 
Congress, so that they would be made with caution. In these Terri- 
tories that was omitted. 

The provision in relation to slavery in Nebraska and Kansas is as 
follows : " The eighth section of the act preparatory to the admission 
of Missouri into the Union (which being inconsistent with the princi- 
ple of non-intervention by Congress with slavery in the States and 
Territories, as required by the legislation of 1850, commonly called 
the compromise measures) is hereby declared inoperative and void ; 
it being the true intent and meaning of this act not to legislate 
slavery into said Territory or State, nor to exclude it therefrom, but 
to leave the people thereof perfectly free to form and regulate their 



AFFAIRS OF KANSAS. 45 

domestic institutions in their own Ava,Y, subject only to the constitu- 
tion of tlie United States : Provided^ That nothing herein contained 
shall be construed to revive or put in force any law or regulation 
which may have existed prior to tlie act of Gth March, 1820^ either 
})rotecting, establishing, prohibiting, or abolishing slavery." 

Tlius it was i)romulgated to the people of this whole country that 
here was a clear field for competition — an open course for the race of 
rivalship ; the goal of which was, the ultimate establishment of a 
sovereign State ; and the prize, the reward of everlasting liberty and 
its institutions on the one liand, or the perpetuity of slavery and its 
concomitants on the other. It is the obvious duty of this govern- 
ment, wliile this law continues, to see this manifesto faithfully and 
honorably and honestly performed, even though its particular sup- 
porters may see cause of a result unfavorable to their hopes. 

It is further to be observed, that in the performance of tliis novel 
experiment, it was provided that all white men who became inhabit- 
ants in Kansas were entitled to vote without regard to their time of 
residence., usually provided in other Territories. Nor was this right 
of voting confined to American citizens, but included all such aliens as 
had declared, or would declare, on oath, their intention to become citi- 
zens. Thus was the proclamation to the world to become inhabitants of 
Kansas, and enlist in this great enterprise, by the force of numbers, 
by vote, to decide for it the great question. Was it to be expected 
that this great proclamation for the political tournament would 
be listened to with indiff'erence and apathy? Was it prepared and 
presented in that spirit ? Did it relate to a subject on which 
the people were cool or indifferent? A large part of the people 
of this country look on domestic slavery as " only evil, and that 
continually," alike to master and to slave, and to the commu- 
nity ; to be left alone to the management or enjoyment of the people 
of the States where it exists, but not to be extended, more es])edally 
as it gives, or may give, political supremacy to a minority of the 
people of this country in the Unitecl States government. On the 
other hand_, many of the people of another part of the United States 
regard slavery, if not in the abstract a blessing, at least as now ex- 
isting, a condition of society best for both white and black, while they 
exist together ; wliile others regard it as no evil, but as the highest 
state of social condition. These consider that they cannot, with 
safety to their interests, permit political ascendency to be largely 
in the hands of those unfriendly to this peculiar institution. From 
these conflicting views^ long and violent has been the controversy, and 
experience seems to show it interminable. 

Many^ and probably a large majority of this nation, lovers of quiet, 
entertained the hope that, after 1850, the so-called compromise 
measures, even though not satisfactory to the free States, would be 
kept by their supj)orters, and made by them what they Avere pro- 
fessed to be, a finality on the subject of the extent and limitations of 
slave territory ; more especially after the assurances contained in the 
inaugural address of President Pierce. This hope was fortifii'd with 
the consideration that at that time Congress had, by ditterent pro- 
visions, settled by law the condition of freedom or slavery for all the 
territory of the United States. These hopes have been disappointed, 



46 APFAIRS OP KANSAS. 

and, from tliis very provision for repose has been extracted a principle 
for disturbing the condition of things on which its foundation of 
finality rested — that is, the permanence and continuance of the then 
existing- condition of legal provisions. The establishment of the 
Territorial governments for Utah and New Mexico, without a pro- 
hibition of slavery, was sustained by many on the ground that no 
such provision was required for its exclusion, as the condition of the 
country and its laws was a sufficient barrier ; and therefore they sus- 
tained them, because it would complete the series, and finish the 
provisions as to slavery iri all our territory, and make an end of con- 
troversy on that subject : yet, in 1854 it was insisted by the friends 
and supporters of the laws of 1850, and it is actually asserted in the 
law establishing the Territorial government of Kansas, that the laws 
for New Mexico and Utah being of the compromise measures, adopt 
and contain a principle utterly at war with their great and professed 
object of tinality; and that, instead of completing and ending the 
provisions of congressional action for the Territories as to slavery, it 
really declared a principle which unsettled all those where slavery had 
been prohibited, and rendered it proper, and only proper, to declare 
such prohibitions all ^'■inoperative and void." The spirit and feeling 
which thus perverted those compromise laws, and made them the 
direct instrument of renewed disturbance, could not be expected then 
to leave the result to the decision of the people of Kansas with entire 
inactivity and indifference. 

The slaveholding States in 1820 secured the admission of Missouri 
as a slaveholding State, and all the region south of 36° 30', to the same 
purpose, by agreeing and enacting that all north of that line should 
be forever free ; and by this they obtained only a sufficient number of 
votes from the free States, as counted with theirs, to adopt it. In 1850 
they agreed that if New Mexico and Utah were made Territories, 
without a prohibition of slavery, it would, with the laws already made 
for the rest of our territory, settle forever the whole subject. This 
proposition, for such a termination, also secured votes from the free 
States, enough, with their own from the slaveholding States, to adopt 
it. In 1854, in utter disregard of these repeated contracts, both these 
arrangements were broken, and both these compromises disregarded, 
and all their provisions for freedom declared inoperative and void, 
by the vote of the slaveholding States, with a very few honorable ex- 
ceptions, and a minority of the votes of the free States. After this 
extraordinary and inexcusable proceeding, it was not to be expected 
that the people of the slaveholding States would take no active meas- 
ures to secure a favorable result by votes in the Territory of Kansas. 
Neither could it be expected that the people of the free States, who 
regarded the act of 1854 as a double breach of faith, would sit down 
and make no effort, by legal means, to correct it. 

It has been said that the repeal of this provision of the Missouri 
compromise, and breach of the compromise of 1850, should not be re- 
garded as a measure of the slaveholding States, because it was pre- 
sented by a senator from a free State. 

The actions or votes of one or more individual men cannot give 
character to or be regarded as fixing a measure on their section or 



AFFAIRS OP KANSAS. 47 

party. The only true or honest mode of determining whether any 
measure is tliat of any section or party is, to ascertain whether the 
majority of that section or party voted for it. Now, a large ma- 
jority — indeed, the whole, with a few rare exceptions — of the repre- 
sentatives from the slaveholding States voted for that repeal. On the 
other hand, a majority of the representatives from the fre»e States 
voted against it. 

This subject of slavery in the Territories, which has violently agi- 
tated the country for many years, and which has been attempted to 
be settled twice by compromise, as before stated, does not remain set- 
tled. The Missouri compromise and the supposed finality by tlie acts 
of 1850 are scattered and dissolved by the vote of the slaveliolding 
States ; and it is not to be disguised that this uncalled for and dis- 
turbing measure has produced a spirit of resentment, from a feeling 
of its injustice_, which, while the cause continues, will be difficult to 
allay. 

This subject, then, which Congress has been unable to settle in 
any such way as the slave States will sustain, is now turned over to 
those who have or shall become inhabitants of Kansas to arrange ; 
and all men are invited to participate in the experiment^ regardless 
of their character, political or religious views, or place of nativity. 

Now, what is the right and the duty of the people of this country 
in relation to this matter ? Is it not the right of all who believe in 
the blessings of slaveholding, and regard it as the best condition of 
society, either to go to Kansas «.s inhabitants, and by their votes 
to help settle this good condition of that Territory ; or if they can- 
not so go and settle, is it not their duty, by all lawful means in their 
power, to promote this object by inducing others like-minded to go? 
This right becomes a duty to all who follow their convictions. All 
who regard an establishment of slavery in Kansas as best for that 
Territory, or as necessary to their own safety by the political weight 
it gives in the national government, should use all lawful means to 
secure that result ; and clearly, the inducing men to go there to become 
permanent inhabitants and voters, and to vote as often as the elections 
occur in favor of the establishment of slavery, and thus control the 
elections, and preserve it a slave State forever, is neither unlawful nor 
censurable. It is and would be highly praiseworthy and commendable, 
because it is using lawful means to carry forward honest convictions of 
public good. All lawfully associated effort to that end is e(j[ually 
commendable. Nor will the application of opprobrious epithets^ and 
calling it propagandism, change its moral or legal character from 
whatever quarter or source, official or otherwise, such epithets may 
come. Neither should they deter any man from peaceably perform- 
ing his duty by following his honest convictions. 

On the other hand, all those who have seen and realized the bless- 
ings of universal liberty, and believe that it can only be secured and 
promoted by tlie prohibition of domestic slavery, and that the eleva- 
tion of honest industry can never succeed where servitude makes labor 
degrading, should, as in duty Ixnind, put forth all reasonable exer- 
tions to advance this great object by lawful means, whenever per- 
mitted by laws of their country. When, therefore, Kansas was pre- 



48 AFFAIRS OF KANSAS. 

sented, by law, as an open field for this experiment, and all were in- 
vited to enter, it became the right and duty of all such as desired, to 
go there as inhabitants for the purpose, by their numbers and by their 
votes lawfully cast, from time to time, to carry or control, in a legal 
way, the elections there for this object. This could only be lawfully 
effected by permanent residence, and continued and repeated effort, 
during the continuance of the Territorial government, and permanently 
remaining there to form and preserve a free-State constitution. All 
those who entertained the same sentiments, but were not disposed 
themselves to go, had the right and duty to use all lawful means to 
encourage and promote the object. If the purpose could be best 
effected by united efforts, by voluntary associations or corporations, or 
by State assistance, as proposed in some southern States, it was all 
equally lawful and laudable. This was not the officious intermeddling 
with the internal affairs of another nation, or State, or the territory 
of another people. The territory is the property of the nation, and 
is, professedly, open to the settlement and the institutions of every 
part of the United States. If lawful means, so extensive as to be ef- 
fectual, were used to people it with a majority of ijihabitants oj)posed 
to slavery, is now considered as a violation of, or an opposition to, the 
law establishing the Territory, then the declarations and provisions of 
that hiw were but a premeditated delusion, which not only allowed 
such measures, but actually invited them by enacting that the largest 
number of the settlers should determine the condition of the country ; 
thus inviting efforts for numbers. Such an invitation must have been 
expected to produce such efforts on both sides. 

It now becomes necessary to inquire what has in fact taken place. 
If violence has taken place as the natural, and perhaj)s unavoidable, 
consequence of the nature of the experiment, bringing into dangerous 
contact and collision inflammable elements, it was the vice of a mis- 
taken law, and immediate measures should be taken by Congress to 
correct such law. If force and violence have been substituted for peace- 
ful measures there, legal provisions should be made and executed to 
correct all the wrong such violence has produced, and to })revent 
their recurrence, and thus secure a i'air fulfilment of the experiment 
by peaceful means, as originally proi'essed and presented in the law. 

A succinct statement of the exercise and progress of the material 
events in Kanzas is this : After the passage of this law, establishing 
the Territory of Kanzas, a large body of settlers rapidly entered into 
said Territory with a view to permanent inhabitancy therein. Most 
of these were from the free States of the West and North, who proba- 
bly intended by their votes and influence to establish there a free 
State, agreeable to the law which invited them. Some part of those 
from the northern States had been encouraged and aided in this en- 
terprise by the Emigrant Aid Society, formed in Massachusetts, 
which put forth some exertions in this laudable object by open 
and public measures in providing facilities for transportation to all 
jieaceable citizens who desired to become permanent settlers in said 
Territory, and providing therein hotels, mills, &c., for the public 
accommodation of that new countrv. 



AFFAIRS OF KANSAS. 49 

The governor of Kanzas having, in pursuance to law, divided the 
Territory into districts, and procured a census thereof, issued his 
prochimation for the election of a legislative assembly therein, to take 
place on the SOth day of March, 1855, and directed how the same 
should be conducted, and the returns made to him, agreeable to the 
law establishing said Territory. On the day of election, large 
bodies of armed men from the State of Missouri appeared at the polls 
in most of the districts, and by most violent and tumultuous carriage 
and demeanor overawed the defenceless inhabitants, and by their own 
votes elected a large majority of the members of both houses of said 
assembly. On the returns of said election being made to the gov- 
ernor, protests and objections were made to him in relation to a part 
of said districts; and as to them^ he set aside such, and such only, as 
by the returns appeared to be bad. In relation to others, covering, 
in all, a majority of the two houses, equally vicious in fact, but appar- 
ently good by formal returns, the inhabitants thereof, borne down by 
said violence and intimidation, scattered and discouraged, and laboring 
under apprehensions of personal violence, refrained and desisted from 
presenting any protest to the governor in relation thereto; and he, 
then uninformed in relation thereto, issued certificates to the members 
who appeared by said formal returns to have been elected.. 

In relation to those districts whicli the governor so set aside, orders 
were by him issued for new elections. In one of these districts the 
same proceedings were repeated by men from Missouri, and in others 
not, and certificates were issued to the persons elected. 

This legislative assembly, so elected, assembled at Pawnee, on 
the 2d day of July, 1855, that being the time and i:)lace for holding 
said meeting, as fixed by the governor, by authority of law. On 
assembling, the said houses proceeded to set aside and reject those 
members so elected on said second election, except in the district 
where the men from Missouri had, at said election, chosen the same 
])ersons they had elected at the said first election, and admitted all of 
the said first-elected members. 

A legislative assembly, so created by military force, by a foreign 
invasion, in violation of the organic law, was but a usurpation. 
No act of its own, no act or neglect of the governor, could legalize or 
sanctify it. Its own decisions as to its own legality are like its laws, 
but the fruits of its own usurpation, which no governor could legiti- 
mate. 

They passed an act altering the place of the temporary seat of gov- 
ernment to the Shawnee Mission, on the border, and in near prox- 
imity to Idissouri. This act the governor regarded as a violation of 
the organic law establishing the Territory, which fixed the temporary 
seat of government, and prohibited the legislative assembly from 
doing anything inconsistent with said act. He therefore, and for that 
cause, vetoed said bill ; but said assembly repassed the same by a^two- 
thirds majority, notwithstanding said veto, and removed to said Shaw- 
nee Mission. They then proceeded to pass laws, and the governor, in 
writing, declined further to recognise them as a legitimate assembly, 
Rep, 34 4 



50 AFFAIRS OF KANSAS. 

sitting at that place. They continued passing laws there, from the 
16th day of July to the 31st day of August, 1855. 

On the 15th day of August last, the governor of said Territory waa 
dismissed from office, and the duties devolved upon the secretary of 
the Territory ; and how many of the laws passed with his official 
approbation does not appear, the laws as now presented being with- 
out date or authentication. 

As by the law of Congress organizing said Territory it was ex- 
pressly provided that the people of the Territory were to be "left 
perfectly free to form and regulate their domestic institutions in their 
own way," and among these institutions slavery is included, it was, 
of course, implied that that subject was to be open and free to public 
and private discussion in all its bearings, rights, and relationships. 
Among these must, of course, be the question, What waa the state of 
the existing laws, and the modifications that might be required on 
that subject? The law had declared that its " true intent and mean- 
ing was not to legislate slavery into the Territory, or exclude it 
therefrom." This would, of course, leave to that people the inquiry, 
What, then, are the existing rights under the constitution? Can 
slaves be holden, in the absence of any law on the subject? This 
question, about which so much difference of opinion exists, and which 
Congress and the courts have never settled, was thus turned over to 
^the people there, to discuss and settle for themselves. 

This Territorial legislature, so created by force from Missouri, ut- 
terly refused to permit discussion on the subject ; but, assuming that 
slavery already existed there, and that neither Congress nor the peo- 
ple in the Territory, under the authority of Congress, had or could 
prohibit it, passed a law which, if enforced, utterly prohibits all dis- 
•cussion of the question. The eleventh and twelfth sections of that 
iact are as follows : 

" Sec. 11. If any person print, write, introduce into, publish or cir- 
culate, or cause to be brought into, printed, written, published or cir- 
culated, or shall knowingly aid or assist in bringing into, printing, 
publishing or circulating within this Territory, any book, paper, 
pamphlet, magazine, hand-bill or circular, containing any statements, 
arguments, opinions, sentiments, doctrines, advice or innuendo, calcu- 
lated to promote a disorderly, dangerous or rebellious disaffection 
among the slaves in this Territory, or to induce such slaves to escape 
from the service of their masters or to resist their authority, he shall 
be guilty of a felony, and be punished by imprisonment and hard 
labor for a term not less than five years. 

" Sec. 12. If any free person, by speaking or by writing, assert or 
maintain that persons have not the right to hold slaves in this Terri- 
tory, or shall introduce into this Territory, print, publish, write, 
circulate, or cause to be introduced into this Territory, written, printed, 
published or circulated in this Territory, any book, paper, magazine, 
pamphlet or circular, containing any denial of the right of persons 
to hold slaves in this Territory, such person shall be deemed guilty of 
felony, and punished by imprisonment at hard labor for a term of not 
less than two years." And further providing, that no person " con- 



AFFAIRS OP KANSAS. 51 

scientiously opposed to holding slaves" shall sit as a juror in the trial 
of any cause founded on a breach of the foregoing law. They further 
provided, that all officers and attorneys should be sworn not only to 
support the constitution of the United States, but also to support and 
sustain the organic law of the Territory, and the fugitive slave laws ; 
and that any person offering to vote shall be presumed to be entitled 
to vote until the contrary is shown, and if any one, when required, 
shall refuse to take oath to sustain the fugitive slave laws, he shall not 
be permitted to vote. Although they passed a law that none but an 
inhabitant, who had paid a tax, should vote, yet they required no 
time of residence necessary, and provided for the immediate payment 
of a poll-tax ; so providing, in effect, that on the eve of an election 
the people of a neighboring State could come in, in unlimited num- 
bers, and, by taking up a residence of a day or an hour, pay a poll- 
tax, and thus become legal voters, and then, after voting, return to 
their own State. They thus, in practical effect, provided for the people 
of Missouri to control elections at their pleasure, and permitted such 
only of the real inhabitants of the Territory to vote as are friendly 
to the holding of slaves. 

They permitted no election of any of the officers in the Territory to 
be made by the people thereof, but created the offices and filled them, 
or appointed officers to fill them for long periods, and provided that 
the next annual election should be holden in October, 1856, and the 
assembly to meet in January, 1857 ; so that none of these laws could 
be changed until the lower house might be changed, in 1856 ; but 
the council, which is elected for two years, could not be changed so as 
to allow a change of the laws or officers until the session of 1858, 
however much the inhabitants of the Territory might desire it. 

These laws, made by an assembly created by a foreign force, are 
but a manifestation of the spirit of oppression which was the parent 
of the whole transaction. No excuse can be found for it in the pre- 
tence that the inhabitants had carried with them into said Territory 
a quantity of Sharpe's rifles — first, because that, if true, formed no ex- 
cuse ; secondly, it is untrue, as their Sharpe's rifles were only obtained 
afterwards, and entirely for the purpose of self-defence, the necessity 
for which, this invasion and other acts of violence and threats clearly 
demonstrated. These laws were obviously made to oppress and drive 
out all who were inclined to the exclusion of slavery ; and if they re- 
mained, to silence them on this subject, and subject them to the will 
and control of the people of Missouri. These are the laws which the 
President says must be enforced by the army and whole 2)ower of this 
nation. 

The people of Kansas, thus invaded, subdued, oppressed, and in- 
sulted, seeing their Territorial government (such only in form) per- 
verted into an engine to crush them in the dust, and to defeat and 
destroy the professed object of their organic law, by depriving them 
of the ^'perfect freedom" therein provided ; and finding no ground to 
hope for rights in that organization, they proceeded, under the 
guaranty of the United States constitution, " peaceably to assemble to 
petition the government for the redress of (their) grievances." Thej 



62 AFFAIRS OF KANSAS. 

saw no earthly source of relief but in the formation of a State govern- 
ment by the peojjle, and the acceptance and ratification thereof by 
Congress. 

It is true that in several instances in our political history, the people 
of a Territory have been authorized by an act of Congress to form a 
State constitution, and after so doing, were admitted by Congress. 
It is quite obvious that no such authority could be given by the act of 
the Territorial government. That clearly has no power to create 
"another government, paramount to itself. It is equally true, that, in 
numerous instances in our history, the people of a Territory have, 
without any previous act of Congress, proceeded to call a convention 
of the people by their delegates ; have formed a State constitution, 
which has been adopted by the people, and a State legislature assem- 
bled under it, and chosen senators to Congress, and then have pre- 
sented said constitution to Congress, who has approved the same, and 
received the senators and members of Congress who were chosen 
under it before Congress had approved the same. Such was the case 
of Tennessee ; such was the case of Michigan, where the people not 
only formed a State constitution without an act of Congress, but they 
actually put their State government into full operation and passed 
laAvs, and it was approved by Congress by receiving it as a State. 
The people of Florida formed their constitution without any act of 
Congress therefor, six years before they were admitted into the 
Union. When the people of Arkansas were about forming a State 
constitution without a previous act of Congress, in 1835, the Territorial 
governor applied to the President on the subject, who referred the 
matter to the Attorney General, and his opinion, as then expressed 
and published, contained the following : 

"It is not in the power of the general assembly of Arkansas to pass 
any law for the purpose of electing members to a convention to form 
a constitution and State government, nor to do any other act, directly 
or indirectly, to create such government. Every such law, even 
though it were approved by the governor of the Territory, would be null 
and void ; if passed by them notwitlistanding his veto, by a vote of 
two-thirds of each branch, it would still be equally void. ' ' He further 
decided that it was not rebellious or insurrectionary, or even unlawful, 
for the people peaceably to proceed, even without an act of Congress, 
in forming a constitution, and that the so forming a State constitu- 
tion, and so far organizing under the same as to choose the officers 
necessary for its representation in Congress, with a view to present 
the same to Congress for admission, was a power which fell clearly 
within the right of the people to assemble and petition for redress. 
The people of Arkansas proceeded without an act of Congress, and 
were received into the Union accordingly. If any rights were derived 
to the people of Arkansas from the terms of the French treaty of ces- 
sion, they equally extended to the people of Kansas, it being a part 
of the same cession. 

In this view of the subject, in the first part of August, 1855, a call 
was published in the public papers for a meeting of the citizens of 
Kansas, irrespective of party, to meet at Lawrence, in said Territory, 



AFFAIRS OF KANSAS. 63 

on tlie 15tli of said August, to take into consideration the propriety of 
calling a convention of the people of the whole Territory to consider 
that subject. That meeting was held on the 15th day of August last, 
and it proceeded to call such convention of delegates to be elected, 
and to assemble at Topeka, in said Territory, on the 19th day of Sep- 
tember, 1855, not to form a constitution, but to consider the propriety 
of calling, formally, a convention for that purpose. The proceedings 
of this meeting of the 15th of August were as follows : 

'■^ State Constitution. 

''Lawrence, Kansas Territory, 

" August 15, 1855. 

"Pursuant to a published call, signed 'Many Citizens,' 'to take 
into consideration the propriety of calling a Territorial convention, 
jireliminary to the formation of a State government, and other subjects 
of jiublic interest,' a convention of the citizens of Kansas Territory, 
irrespective of party, met, and upon motion of C. K. Holliday, Dr. 
A. Hunting was called to the chair, Gr. W. Brown, E. D. Ladd, C. 
E. Blood, L. P. Lincoln, James Christian, and Dr. J. D. Barnes 
elected vice presidents, and J. K. Goodin and J. P. Fox, secretaries. 

" On motion of J. Hutchinson, esq., a committee of five were ap- 
pointed to prepare business for the convention. Messrs. (1. W. Smith, 
C. K. Holliday, C. Robinson, John Brown, jr., and A. F. Powell 
were chosen that committee. 

" Durino- the absence of the committee, the convention was addressed 
by Rev. Lovejoy, G. W. Brown, J. Hutchinson, and M. F. Conway. 
After which, Mr. G. W. Smith, chairman, submitted the following as 
the report of the committee : 

" Whereas the people of Kansas Territory have been, since its set- 
tlement, and now are, without any law-making power ; therefore, be it 

^^ Resolved, That we, the people of Kansas Territory, in mass meeting 
assembled, irrespective of party distinctions, influenced by a common 
necessity, and greatly desirous of promoting the common good, do 
hereby call upon and request all bona fide citizens of Kansas Territory, 
of whatever political views or predilections, to consult together in 
their respective election districts, and in mass convention, or other- 
wise, elect three delegates for each representative to which such 
district is entitled in the House of Representatives of the legislative 
assembly, by proclamation of Governor Reeder of date 10th March, 
1855 ; said delegates to assemble in convention at the town of Topeka, 
on the 19th day of September, 1855, then and there to consider and 
determine upon all subjects of public interest, and particularly upon 
that having reference to the speedy formation of a State constitution, 
with an intention of an immediate application to be admitted as a 
State into the Union of the ' United States of America.' 

" After the discussion of the resolution by Mr. Stearns and others, 
the report of the committee was adopted witli but one dissenting voice. 

" On motion, it was ordered that the proceedings of this convention 
be published in the newspapers of the Territory, and Messrs. J. Speer, 



54 AFFAIRS OF KANSAS. 

E. G. Elliott, and G. W. Brown, were appointed a committee to pub- 
lisli and circulate the call for the convention to be holden at Topeka. 
" On motion, the convention adjourned sine die. 

"A. HUNTING, President. 

^'G. W.Brown, 
"E. D. Ladd, 
"C. E. Blood, 
"L. P. Lincoln, 
" Jas. Christi/vn, 
"J. D. Barnes, 

" Vice Presidents. 

'M. K. GOGDIN, 

"J. P. Fox, 

" Secretaries.'' 

Agreeable to these proceedings, the people of the diiFerent districts 
did, as therein recommended, proceed to appoint delegates to this 
meeting at Topeka, to be holden on said 19th day of September, 1855. 
The delegates so appointed did assemble at Topeka on said day, and 
j)roceeded to consider said subject, and they took the following pro- 
ceedings : 

^^Proceedings of the State Constitutional Conveyition, held at Topeha, 
Kansas Territory, September 19-20, 1855. 

" Whereas the constitution of the United States guaranties to the 
23eople of this republic the right of assembling together in a peaceable 
manner for the common good, to 'establish justice, insure domestic 
tranquillitj", provide for the common defence, promote the general 
welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to themselves and their 
posterity;' and whereas the citizens of Kansas Territory were pre- 
vented from electing members of a legislative ar sembly, in pursuance 
of the proclamation of Governor Keeder, on the 30th of March last, 
by invading forces from foreign States coming into the Territory and 
forcing upon the people a legislature of non-residents and others, in- 
imical to the interests of the people of Kansas Territory, defeating the 
object of the organic act, in consequence of which the Territorial gov- 
ernment became a perfect failure, and the people were left without 
any legal government until their patience has become exhausted, and 
,'endurance ceases to be a virtue ;' and they are compelled to resort to 
the only remedy left — that of forming a government for themselves ; 
therefore, 

" Ilesolved hy the people of Kansas Territoi^y in delegate convention as- 
sembled, That an election shall be held in the several election precincts 
of this Territory on the second Tuesday of October next, under the 
regulations and restrictions hereinafter imposed, for members of a con- 
vention to form a constitution, adopt a bill of rights for the people of 
Kansas, and take all needful measures for organizing a State govern- 
ment preparatory to the admission of Kansas into the Union as a 
State. 

" Resolved, That the apportionment of delegates to said convention 
shall be as follows : two delegates for each representative to which the 



AFFAIRS OF KANSAS. 55 

people Avere entitled in the legislative assembly by proclamation of 
Governor Keeder, of date lOtli March, 1855. 

^^ Resolved, That a committee of seven be appointed by the chair, 
who shall organize by the appointment of a chairman and secretary. 
They shall keep a record of their proceedings, and shall have the gen- 
eral superintendence of the affairs of the Territory so far as regards the 
organization of a State government, which committee shall be styled 
^ the executive committee of Kansas Territory.' 

^^ Resolved, That it shall be the duty of the executive committee of 
Kansas Territory to advertise said election at least fifteen days before 
the second Tuesday of October next ; and to appoint three judges 
thereof for each precinct, and the said judges of each precinct shall 
appoint two clerks, all of whom shall be duly sworn or affirmed to 
discharge the duties of their respective offices impartially, and with 
fidelity ; and they shall have power to administer the oath or affirma- 
tion to each other, and the said judges shall open said election at 10 
o'clock a. m, at the place designated in each precinct by the said ex- 
ecutive committee, and close the same at 4 o'clock p. m. And in 
case any of the officers appointed fail to attend, the officer or officers 
in attendance shall supply the vacancy or vacancies ; and in the 
event of all of them failing to attend, ten qualified voters shall supply 
their places. And the said judges shall make out duplicate returns 
of said election, seal up, and transmit one copy of the same within 
five days to the chairman of the executive committee, to be laid be- 
fore the convention, and they shall, within ten days, seal uj) and hand 
the other to some member of the executive committee, 

" Resolved, That the chairman of the executive committee of 
Kansas Territory shall announce, by proclamation, the names of the 
persons elected delegates to said convention ; and in case the returns 
from any precinct should not be completed by that day, as soon there- 
after as practicable ; and in case of a tie, a new election shall be 
ordered by the executive committee, giving five days' notice thereof, 
by the same officers who officiated at the first election. 

^^ Resolved, That all white male inhabitants, citizens of the United 
States, above the age of twenty-one years, who have had a bona fide 
residence in the Territory of Kansas for the space of thirty days im- 
mediately preceding the day of said election, shall be entitled to vote 
for delegates to said convention ; and all white male inhabitants, 
citizens of the United States, above the age of twenty-one years, who 
have resided in the Territory of Kansas for the space of three months 
immediately preceding the day of election, shall be eligible as dele- 
gates to said convention. 

^'Resolved, That if at the time of holding said election it shall be 
inconvenient, on account of Indian hostilities or any other cause what- 
ever that would disturb or prevent the voters of any election precinct 
in the Territory from the free and peaceable exercise of the elective 
franchise, the officers are hereby authorized to adjourn said election 
into any other precinct in the Territory, and to any other day they 
may see proper, of the necessity of which they shall be the exclusive 
judges, at which time and place the qualified voters may cast their 
votes. 



t.ofC. 



66 AFFAIRS OF KANSAS. 

'■^Resolved., That said convention shall he held at Topeka on the 
fourth Tuesday of Octoher next, at 12 o'clock, m., of that day. 

'^Besolved, That a majority of said convention shall constitute a 
quorum, and that the said convention shall determine upon the re- 
turns and qualifications of its members, and shall have and exercise 
all the rights, privileges, and immunities incident to such bodies, 
and may adopt such rules and regulations for its government as a 
majority thereof may direct. If a majority of said convention do not 
assemble on the day appointed therefor, a less number is hereby au- 
thorized to adjourn from day to day. 

^^ Resolved, That in- case of the death, resignation, or non-attend- 
ance of any delegate chosen from any district of the Territory, the 
president of the convention shall issue his writ ordering a new elec- 
tion, on five days' notice, to be conducted as heretofore directed. 

^'■Resolved, That no person shall be entitled to a seat in the conven- 
tion at its organization except the members whose names are contain- 
ed in the proclamation of the chairman of the executive committee. 
But after the convention is or2:anized, seats mav be contested in the 
usual way. 

^^ Resolved., That the members of the convention shall receive, as a 
compensation for their services, the sum of three dollars per day, and 
three dollars for every twenty miles' travel to and from the same, and 
that Congress be respectfully requested to appropriate a sufficient sum 
to defray the necessary expenses of said convention. 

^'■Resolved, That on the adoption of a constitution for the State of 
Kansas, the president of the convention shall transmit an authenti- 
cated copy thereof to the President of the United States, to the Pre- 
sident of the Senate, and to the Speaker of the House of Eepresenta- 
tives ; to each member of Congress, and to the governor of each of 
the several States in the Union; and adopt such other measure as will 
secure to the people of Kansas the rights and privilege of a sovereign 
State. 

" On motion, the committee on address was vested with authority 
to notify the people of the several districts of the Territory of the 
coming election, by handbills, public addresses, and otherwise as 
they may think proper. 

""The Territorial executive committee was appointed by the chair, 
consisting of the following persons: J. H. Lane, C. K. Hollidav, M. 
J. Parrott, P. C. Schuyler, G. W. Smith, G. W. Brown, and J. K. 
Goodin. 

" On motion, the proceedings of this convention were ordered to be 
published in all the papers of the Territory. 

''A vote of thanks was passed to the president and officers of the 
convention. 

"Adjourned, with three enthusiastic cheers for the new govern- 
ment of Kansas. 

"WM. Y. KOBERTS, Presu^ew^. 

<'E. D. Ladd, 

"J. H. Nesbitt, 

"M. W. Delahay, 

^''Secretaries." 



AFFAIRS OF KANSAS. 57 



' ' CONSTITUTIONAL PROCLAMATION . 

' ' To the Legal Voters of Kanzas : 

"Whereas the Territorial government as now constituted for Kansas 
has proved a failure — squatter sovereignty under its workings a mis- 
erahle delusion, in proof of Avhich it is only necessary to refer to our 
past history and our j^resent deplorable condition — our ballot-boxes 
have been taken possession of by bands of armed men from foreign 
States — our people forcibly driven therefrom — persons attempting to 
be foisted upon us as members of a so-called legislature, unacquainted 
with our wants, and hostile to our best interests — some of them never 
residents of our Territory — misnamed laws passed, and now attempt- 
ed to be enforced by the aid of citizens of foreign States of the most 
oppressive, tyrannical, and insulting character — the right of suffrage 
taken from us — debarred from the privilege of a voice in the election 
of even the most insignificant officers — the right of free speech stifled 
— the muzzling of the press attempted ; and whereas longer forbear- 
ance with such oppression and tyranny has ceased to be a virtue ; and 
whereas the people of this country have heretofore exercised the right 
of changing their form of government when it became oppressive, and 
have at all times conceded this right to the people in this and all 
other governments ; and whereas a Territorial form of government is 
unknown to the constitution, and is the mere creature of necessity 
awaiting the action of the people ; and whereas the debasing char- 
acter of the slavery which now involves us impels to action, and 
leaves us as the only legal and peaceful alternative the immediate 
establishment of a State government ; and whereas the organic act fails 
in pointing out the course to be adopted in an emergency like ours : 
Therefore, you are requested to meet at your several precincts in said 
Territory, hereinafter mentioned, on the second Tuesday of October 
next, it being the ninth day of said month, and then and there cast 
your ballots for members of a convention, to meet at Topeka on the 
fourth Tuesday in October next, to form a constitution, adopt a bill 
of rights for the people of Kansas, and take all needful measures for 
organizing a State government preparatory to the admission of Kansas 
into the Union as a State. ' 

'■^ Places for Polls. 

" First election district. — Lawrence precinct, at the office of John 
Hutchinson, in Lawrence. Blanton i)recinct, at the house of J. B. 
Abbott, in Blanton. Palmyra precinct, at the house of H. Barrick- 
low, in Palmyra — Wakarusa river the dividing line between the two 
precincts. 

^'Second election district. — Bloomington precinct, house of ITarrison 
Burson, on the Wakarusa. Benicia precinct, house of J. J. Cran- 
mer, East Douglas. 

^^ Third eUct ion district. — Topeka precinct, house of F. W. Giles, 
Topeka. Big Springs precinct, at the house of Wesley Frost, in 



58 AFFAIRS OF KANSAS. 

Washington. Tecnmseh precinct, at the house of Mr. Hoagland, in 
Tecimiseh. 

^^ Fourth election district. — Willow Springs precinct, at the house 
of Dr. Chapman, on the Santa Fe road, Springfield. 

" Fifth election district. — Bull Creek precinct, at the house of Bap- 
tiste Peoria, on Pottawatomie creek. Pottawatomie precinct, at the 
house of Henry Sherman. Osawattamie precinct, at the house of 
Wm. Hughes, in Osawattamie. Big Sugar Creek precinct, at the 
house of Elijah Tucker, at old Pottawatomie Mission. Little Sugar 
Creek precinct, at the house of Isaac Stockton. Neosho precinct, at 
the store of Hamilton Smith, in Neosho. Hampden precinct, at the 
house of W. A. Ela, in Hampden. 

"Sixth election district. — Fort Scott precinct, at the house of Mr. John- 
son, or a suitable building in Fort Scott. Scott's Town precinct, at 
the house of Mr. Vandever. 

"Seventh election district. — Titus precinct, at the house of J. B. Ti- 
tus, on the Santa Fe road. 

" Eiglith election district. — Council Grove precinct, at Council Grove 
Mission House. Waubonsa precinct, at some suitable building in 
Waubonsa. Mill Creek precinct, at the house of G. E. Hoheneck, on 
Mill creek. Ashland precinct, at the house of Mr. Adams, in Ash- 
land. 

"Ninth election district. — Pawnee precinct, at Loden & Shaw's store, 
in Pawnee. 

''' Tenth election district. — Big Blue precinct, at the house of S. D. 
Dyer, in Juniatta. Rock creek precinct, at the house of Robert 
Wilson. 

" Eleventh election district. — Vermillion precinct, at the house of 
John Schmidt, on Vermillion branch of Blue river. 

" Twelfth election district. — St. Mary's precinct^ at the house of B. 
F. Bertrand. Silver lake precinct, at the house of Joseph Lefram- 
bois. 

" Thirteenth election district. — Hickory Point precinct, at the house 
of Charles Hardt. Falls precinct, at the house of ' Mill Company,' 
at Grass-hopper Falls, 

"Fourteenth election district. — Bur-Oak precinct, at the house of 
Benjamin Harding. Doniphan precinct, (including part of the 15th 
district to Walnut creek,) at the house of Dr. G. A. Cutler, in Doni- 
phan, Wolf river precinct, at the house of Aaron Lewis. 

"Fifteenth election district. — Walnut Creek precinct, (south Walnut 
creek,) at the house of Charles Hays, on military road. 

" Sixteenth election district. — Leavenworth precinct, at the store of 
Thomas Doyle, in Leavenworth City. Easton precinct, at the house 
of Thomas A. Maynard, on Stranger creek. Wyandot precinct, at 
the council-house, in Wyandot City. Ridge precinct, at the house of 
Wm. Pennock. 

"Seventeenth election district. — Mission precinct, at the Baptist 
mission-building. Wakarusa precinct, at the store of Paschal Fish. 

" Eighteenth election district. — California precinct, at the house of W. 
W. Moore, on the St. Joseph and California road. 



AFFAIRS OP KANSAS. 59 

" INSTRUCTION TO JUDGES OF ELECTION. 

" The tliree judges will j)rovicle for eacli poll, ballot-boxes for de- 
positing the ballots cast by electors ; shall appoint two clerks, all of 
whom shall be sworn or affirm to discharge the duties of their respect- 
ive offices impartially and with fidelity ; and the judges and clerks 
shall have power to administer the oath or affirmation to each other ; 
and the said judges shall open said election at 10 o'clock a. m., at the 
place designated in each precinct by the executive committee of Kan- 
sas Territory, and close the same at 4 o'clock j). m. In case any of 
the officers appointed fail to attend, the officer or officers in attendance 
shall supply their places. And the said judges shall make out 
duplicate returns of said election ; seal wp and transmit one copy of 
the same within five days to the chairman of the executive committee 
to be laid before the convention, and they shall within ten days seal 
up and hand the other to some member of the said excecutive com- 
mittee. If at the time of holding said election it shall be inconveni- 
ent on account of Indian hostilities, or any other cause whatever, that 
would disturb or prevent the voters of any election precinct in the 
Territory from the free and peaceable exercise of the elective fran- 
chise, the officers are hereby authorized to adjourn said election into 
any other precinct in the Territory, and to any other day they may 
see proper, of the necessity of which they shall be the exclusive 
judges, at which time and place the qualified voters may cast their 
votes. 

" QUALIFICATION OF VOTERS, &C. 

" All white male inhabitants, citizens of the United States, or who 
have declared their intentions, before the proper authorities, to be- 
come such, above the age of twenty- one years, who have had a hona 
fide residence in the Territory for the s[)ace of thirty days immedi- 
ately preceding the day of the said election, shall be entitled to vote 
for delegates to said convention ; and all white male inhabitants, citi- 
zens of the United States, above the age of twenty-one years, who 
have had a hona fide residence in the Territory of Kansas for the 
space of three months immediately preceding the day of election, shall 
be eligible as delegates to said convention. 

" APPORTIONMENT. 

" The apportionment of delegates to said convention shall be as fol- 
lows : Two delegates for each representative to which the people were 
entitled in the legislative assembly^ by proclamation of Governor 
Keeder of date of March 10, 1855. 

'•It is confidently believed that the people of Kansas are fully 
alive to the importance of the step they are about to take in disen- 
thralling themselves from the slavery which is now fettering them ; 
and the squatters of Kansas are earnestly requested to be at their sev- 
eral polls on the day above designated. See that there be no illegal 
votes cast, and that every ballot received be in accordance with your 
choice for delegate to the constitutional convention, and have all the 
regulations and restrictions carried out. 



60 AFFAIRS OF KANSAS. 

" The plan proposed in the proclamation to govern yon in the elec- 
tion has been adopted after mature deliberation, and, if adhered to by 
you, will result in establishing in Kansas an independent govern- 
ment that will be admitted into our beloved Union as a sovereign 
State, securing to our people the liberty they have heretofore enjoyed, 
and wliich has been so ruthlessly wrested from them by reckless in- 
vaders. 

" By order of the executive committee of Kansas Territory : 

"J. H. LANE, Chairman, 

" J. K. GooDiN, Secretarij." 

Delegates were elected agreeably to the proclamation so issued, and 
tbey met at Topeka on the fourth Tuesday in October, 1855, and 
formed a constitution, wbich was submitted to the people, and was 
ratified by them by vote in the districts. An election of State officers 
and members of the State legislature has been had^ and a representa- 
tive to Congress elected, and it is intended to proceed to the election 
of senators, with the view to present the same, with the constitution, 
to Congress for admission into the Union. 

Whatever views individuals may at times, or in meetings, have 
expressed, and whatever ultimate determination may have been en- 
tertained in the result of being spurned by Congress, and refused re- 
dress, is now entirely immaterial. That cannot condemn or give 
character to the proceedings thus far pursued. 

Many may have honestly believed usurpation could make no law, 
and that if Congress made no further provisions they were well justi- 
fied in forming a law for themselves ; but it is not now necessary to 
consider that matter, as it is to be hoped that Congress will not leave 
them to such a necessity. 

Thus far this effort of the people for redress is peaceful, constitu- 
tional, and right. Whether it will succeed, rests with Congress to 
determine ; but clear it is that it should not be met and denounced as 
revolutionary, rebellious, insurrectionary, or unlawful, nor does it 
call for or justify the exercise of any force by any department of this 
goverment to check or control it. 

It now becomes proper to inquire what should be done by Congress ; 
for we are informed by the President, in substance, that he has no 
power to correct a usurpation, and that the laws, even though made 
by usurped authority, must be by bim enforced and executed, even 
with military force. The measures of redress should be applied to 
the true cause of the difficulty. This obviously lies in the repeal of 
the clause for freedom in the act of 1820, and therefore the true remedy 
lies in tiie entire repeal of the act of 1854, which effected it. Let this 
be done with frankness and magnanimity, and Kansas be organized 
anew, as a free Territory, and all will be put right. 

But if Congress insist on proceeding with the experiment, then de- 
clare all the action by tliis spurious foreign legislative assembly 
utterly inoperative and void, and direct a reorganization, providing 
proper safeguard for legal voting and against foreign force. 

There is, however, another way to put an end to all this trouble 



AFFAIRS OF KANSAS. 61 

there, and in tlie nation, witliout retracing steps or continuing vio- 
lence, or by force compelling obedience to tyrannical laws made by 
foreign force ; and tliat is, by admitting that Territory as a State, 
with her free constitution. True, indeed, her numbers are not such 
as gives her a right to demand admission, being, as the President in- 
forms us, probably only about twenty-five thousand. The constitu- 
tion fixes no number as necessary, and the importance of now settling 
this question may well justify Congress in admitting this as a State, 
at this time, especially as we have good reason to believe, that if ad- 
mitted as a State, and controversy ended, it will immediately fill up 
with a numerous and successful population. 

At any rate, it seems impossible to believe that Congress is to leave 
that people without redress, to have enforced upon them by the army 
of the nation these measures and laws of violence and oppression. 
Are tliev to be dragooned into submission? Is that an experiment 
pleasanWio execute on our own free people ? 

The true character of this transaction is matter of extensive noto- 
riety. Its essential features are too obvious to allow of any successful 
disguise or palliation, however complicated or ingenious may be the 
statements, or however special the pleadings, for that purpose. The 
case requires some quieting, kind, and prudent treatment by the hand 
of Congress to do justice and satisfy the nation. The j^eople of this 
country are peacefully relying on Congress to provide the competent 
measures of redress which they have the undoubted power to admin- 
ister. 

The Attorney General, in the case of Arkansas, says : '' Congress 
may at pleasure repeal or modify the laws passed by the Territorial 
legislature, and may at any time abrogate and remodel the legisla- 
ture itself, and all the other departments of the Territorial govern- 
ment." 

Treating this grievance in Kanzas with ingenious excuses, with 
neglect or contempt, or riding over the oppressed with an army, and 
dragooning them into submission, will make no satisfactory termina- 
tion. Party success may at times be temporarily secured by adroit 
devices, plausible pretences, and partisan address ; but the permanent 
preservation of this Union can be maintained only by frankness and 
integrity. Justice may be denied where it ought to be granted ; 
power may perpetuate that vassalage which violence and usurpation 
have produced; the subjugation of white freemen may be necessary, 
that African slavery may succeed; but such a course must not be ex- 
pected to produce peace and satisliaction in our country, so long as the 
people retain anv proper sentiment of justice, liberty, and law. 

J. COLLAMER. 



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